The Poet (Samantha Jazz)

But I don’t just go. I push his limits. “The camera’s out in the parking lot. I can’t say if that’s because the camera was hacked or just busted. If it was busted—”

“Did you kill Newman, Detective?”

That question is yet another knife carving away every honorable moment of my career, cutting it away piece by piece. “I did not.”

“Then I suggest you trust me to handle the scene and get out of my face before one of us gets charged with murder. And it might not be you or Lang.” He grits his teeth, and still glaring at me, he speaks to Lang. “Get her out of here now.”

I suck in a jagged breath and step around him, meeting Lang at the door, but I don’t look at my paid partner. If I do, he’ll take another knee. I reach for the doorknob and hear, “Stop.”

At the captain’s command, Lang and I turn to find the captain facing us, spine stiff, hands on his hips. He fixes his brown eyes—that shade almost black with his anger—on Lang. “Why did she knee you?”

Without even a second of hesitation, he replies with, “I shut the door,” handling that dodgeball with a lie that he bats back with far too much ease.

The captain’s stare finds me now. “Why did you knee him?”

I will not willingly tell a lie, so I stick to honesty. “If you had to put up with him every day for five years, you would, too, sir.”

He just looks at me, his expression unchanged, unreadable. And keeps looking at me. Seconds tick by, heavy, tension-laden seconds before he simply orders, “Go.” Now eager to comply, I begin to turn and he adds, “Not you, Detective Jazz.”

I suck in another breath and turn to face the captain again. Lang might be a liar, but he’s not a complete fool. He exits the room and shuts the door behind him. Now I’m alone with the hard brute of a man I call my boss. “I’m going to give you something to think about while you wait for me in my office,” he says. “I believe that you hated your father.”

My teeth grit. I’m not sure where he’s going with this, but I’m certain it’s no place good. “I loved my father,” I correct, and it’s true. I loved him. He was my idol. Until he wasn’t, but the love didn’t go away.

“And hated him,” he corrects in turn. “Interesting thing to me,” he continues, “is that just three months after he died, The Poet came into your life.”

“You gave me the case.”

“You became obsessed, and obsession became a monster that you couldn’t control with this one. Almost,” he pauses for effect, the blow he’s about to deliver hanging in the air before he throws his punch and adds, “as if you needed someone to hate more than your father. And what do you have to show for that hate? A dead boy and a lawsuit.”

I feel his words like a blade stabbing in my chest, a bull’s-eye in the center of my body that kills a piece of me that isn’t coming back. I’m not coming back.

“You may leave now, Detective Jazz.”

And I do. Without another word, I leave, in more ways than one.

Chapter 87

I could hate the captain for throwing that boy in my face, but I don’t. It’s not that simple. I don’t think it will ever be that simple ever again. The truth is that when you work in homicide, there are moments when you fear that you are no longer human. Too cold. Too immune to blood and gore. Too much like the killers you hunt. Then there are those opposing moments when you pray to God that you can hold yourself together.

When I step out of that security booth, with the captain’s words burning holes in my mind, I’m not having one of those familiar “please God” moments. Instead, there’s a cold seeping inside me and a decision about my future brewing hot and quickly chilling. I do have a “thank God” moment when Lang gives me one look and says nothing. Regardless of why we partnered up, we have spent more time together than most spouses. He knows that I’m in what we have declared our ground zero, that place where we must gather ourselves, find ourselves, ground ourselves, or else we self-destruct.

Lang motions down the hallway toward an exit I don’t know. I fall into step with him, still trusting him on some level when he doesn’t deserve that trust. Or maybe he does. I need out of ground zero before I assess where I stand with Lang. For me, that means distance. I need distance from the recent events scratching holes in my soul.

We exit the building through a side door, and I don’t ask how Lang’s Mustang is conveniently waiting for us. I don’t care. I climb inside the passenger side and settle into my seat. I’m starting to compartmentalize, a skill that is both underrated and necessary in this job. I’m no longer fighting my demons with labels like “my father” and “The Poet.” They’re boxed up. I’ve shut the lid. They’re clawing at the lid, but their destructive effect is postponed until a later date. I don’t have to analyze why they’re in the same box. Despite the captain’s desire to shock me with some stunning revelation I already know. I’ve known for a long time. But it’s not what he thinks. It’s not about displaced hate. It’s about the only two monsters I’ve faced and failed to defeat.