“I guess that’s the same as when …” Jared’s voice trailed off. He didn’t have to say when. Instead, he looked out the back window. The dark panes showed his reflection. “I bet you get your sergeant’s stripes off this.”
She shook her head, but said, “Maybe.”
He stared at her—waiting. Needing.
She asked, “What are they saying at the station?”
Jared walked to the closet. “That you’ve got balls of steel.” He dialed the combination on the gun safe. Lena watched the back of his neck. There was a pink line of sunburn where his helmet didn’t protect the skin. He must’ve known she was watching, but he just took his holster off his belt and stored his gun beside hers. Near hers. He didn’t even let their guns touch.
She asked, “Does it bother you?”
He shut the safe door, spun the combination. “Why would it bother me?”
Lena didn’t say the words, but they were screaming in her head: Because they think I’m tougher than you. Because your wife was taking down some very bad guys while you were toodling around on your bike giving tickets to soccer moms.
Jared said, “I’m proud of you.” He used his reasonable voice, the one that made Lena want to punch him in the face. “They should give you a medal for what you did.”
He had no idea what she’d done. Jared only knew the highlights, the details Lena was allowed to share outside closed doors.
She repeated the question. “Does it bother you?”
He paused for a second too long. “It bothers me that you could’ve been killed.”
He still hadn’t answered the question. Lena studied his face. The skin was unlined, fresh. She’d met Jared when he was twenty-one, and in the five and a half years since, he’d somehow started looking younger, like he was aging in reverse. Or maybe Lena was getting older more quickly. So much had changed since those early days. In the beginning, she could always tell what he was thinking. Of course, since then, she’d given him plenty of mortar to build up a wall around himself.
He started unbuttoning his shirt. “I think I’m gonna go put those cabinets together.”
She gave a startled laugh. “Really?” The kitchen had been torn apart for three months, mostly because Jared found a new reason every weekend to not work on it.
He let his shirt drop to the floor. “At least Ikea will know I’m still the man of the house.”
Now that it was out there, Lena didn’t know how to respond. “You know it’s not like that.” Even to her own ears, the excuse sounded weak. “It’s just not.”
“Really?”
Lena didn’t answer.
“Right.” Jared’s cell phone started to ring. He pulled it out of his pocket, checked the number, and declined the call.
“That your girlfriend?” Lena didn’t like the thinness in her tone. The joke wasn’t funny. They both knew that.
He rummaged through the dirty-clothes basket and found his jeans, one of his T-shirts.
“It’s almost midnight.” Lena looked at the bedside clock. “Past midnight.”
“I’m not sleepy.” He dressed quickly, tucking his phone into his back pocket. “I’ll keep the noise down.”
“You need your phone to put the cabinets together?”
“The charge is low.”
“Jared—”
“It won’t take long to finish.” He smiled that fake smile again. “Least I can do, right?”
Lena smiled back, holding up her glass in a toast.
He didn’t leave. “You should get in the shower before you fall down.”
She nodded, but couldn’t stop her eyes taking in the way the T-shirt clung to his chest, followed the definition of his abs. The vodka had given her a nice buzz. Her body was finally starting to relax. There was something about the way Jared was standing that brought old memories rushing back. Lena let her mind wander to a place she usually kept blocked off—the town where she’d lived before she moved with Jared to Macon, the city where she’d first learned how to be a cop.
Back in Grant County, Jared’s father had taught Lena everything she knew about being a police officer. Well, almost everything. Lena had a feeling the tricks she’d learned after Chief Jeffrey Tolliver’s death would’ve pissed him the hell off. For all the times he crossed the line, Jeffrey sure came down hard on Lena whenever he caught her skipping near it.
“Lee?” Jared asked. He had Jeffrey’s eyes, the same way of tilting his head to the side while he waited for her to answer him.
Lena finished the drink, though her head was swimming. “I love you.”
It was Jared’s turn to give a startled laugh.
She asked, “Aren’t you going to say you love me back?”
“Do you want me to?”
Lena didn’t answer.
He gave a resigned sigh as he walked over to her. She was dressed in nothing but her bra and underwear, but he kissed her on the forehead the same way he did with his sister. “Don’t fall asleep in the shower.”
Lena watched him go. He’d been wearing the same dirty T-shirt a lot lately. There were spots of yellow paint on the back and shoulders from where he’d started remodeling the spare bedroom three weeks ago.
Lena had told him not to paint the walls, to wait another few weeks—not because he had at least ten other projects in the house that needed to be finished first, but because it was bad luck.
Jared never listened to her.
Of course, she never listened to him, either.
Lena took the vodka bottle with her into the bathroom. She put the empty glass on the back of the toilet and drank straight from the bottle, her head tilting back. Probably not wise considering the pain pills she’d taken as soon as she walked through the front door, but Lena wasn’t feeling particularly smart at the moment. She wanted the amnesia to come. She wanted the pills and the alcohol to erase everything from her mind—what had happened before the raid, during the raid, after. She wanted it all blanked out so that she could lie down and see darkness instead of that silent flickering movie that had haunted her for the last six days.
She put the bottle down on the back of the toilet. Her fingers felt thick as she pinned up her hair. Lena stared at her reflection in the mirror. There were dark circles under her eyes, and not just from the bruise. She pressed her fingers to the glass. Her face was starting to show the things she’d lost.
The number of bodies she’d left in her wake.
Lena looked down. Without realizing, she had pressed her palm to her flat stomach. As recently as nine days ago, there had been the beginning of a swell. Her pants had been tight. Her breasts had been sore. Jared hadn’t been able to stop himself from touching her. Sometimes, Lena would wake up and find his hand resting on her belly, as if he was laying claim to what he’d created. The life he’d put inside of her.
But of course the life didn’t stay there. His hand couldn’t stop the wrenching pain that had ripped Lena from a deep sleep. His words couldn’t comfort her as the blood flowed. In the bathroom. At the hospital. On the drive home. It was a red tide that left nothing but death in its wake.
And every time she walked by that fucking spare bedroom with its bright yellow walls, she was gripped by such a cold hate for him that she shivered with rage.