Lotus Effect

Our soaked clothes pooled on the floor around us, I stand before him bare and vulnerable. The dim nightlight of the bathroom exposes every scar on my flesh. The ache to close my eyes and hide from this moment stirs beneath my skin, the sca

r slashed across my chest an enflamed ember of doubt.

But my eyes remain open, even when I start to tremble. I let my gaze roam over Rhys. His scored body mirrors my own. The wounds he’s suffered in the field as an agent, the damage he sustained to his leg. The white scar drags down his thigh; the multiple operations to correct the injury.

He takes me by the nape, closing the distance between us. His coarse palm trails my neck, feeling his way over my shoulder, casting rising gooseflesh along my skin. He maps a path down my arm…stopping when he reaches the rubber band that always shackles my wrist.

His finger dips beneath the thin band, he drags it over my hand. “Tonight, with me, you won’t need this,” he says. As he sinks to his knees, his hands cup my hips.

I try for even breaths, but they’re ragged and clipped as they escape. I let my hands rest on his shoulders as he tenderly kisses my belly, my chest, my scars. One by one, every scar he memorized working my cold case, he caresses affectionately, lovingly.

The acceptance of our bodies, of our pain—this is the only way for us to make love.

I lower myself before him, draping my legs around his hips as he seats himself on the floor. We move fluidly together, like a dance that guts you to watch, it’s so beautiful. We make love on the hotel room floor. We fuck in the bed on top of the tacky floral bedspread. And when Rhys notices the pain breaking through, my mind wandering to what was stolen from me, and every betrayal I’ve uncovered…he won’t allow it to tear into our night. He makes love to me again. And again. Until I’m too spent to think.

We become a tangle of languid limbs on the bed. I don’t know what time it is, and I don’t want to know.

We talk about the revelations of the case. We’re still partners; this comes naturally to us. In this sense, nothing has changed. I still feel as open as ever with Rhys, even while his thumb traces the lines of my palm.

“Did you locate Torrance?” I ask.

Rhys stirs next to me. “No. I felt like Rixon was putting me off.” He exhales heavily. “I wanted to ask Torrance about his knowledge of you and the pregnancy. Try to nail down why he lied to the police about being with Cam.”

That’s why he sent me away. I think about that for a second, trying to string together Rhys’s logic on the two cases now knowing what he does about me: the baby, and Drew. “But you’re still looking at Drew.”

He squeezes my hand reassuringly. “Torrance can confirm what Cameron told you, giving us an opening to question Drew’s alibi. Was he with Cam the whole time during your attack?” He shakes his head against the pillow. “I wish we could question Cameron.”

“That’s precisely the reason why we can’t,” I say, letting the sick realization take root. “Someone followed me to her, and that same person wants both cases to go away.”

Rhys turns to look at me. “How did Chelsea respond to you when you confronted Drew?”

I wish I could void that one memory. “She was frightened of me.” But was it an act?

Cam admitted she was with Drew that night after she left the Dock House, which means Chelsea has no alibi. Drew used Chelsea as his alibi to keep his and Cam’s relationship a secret. But if all parties were clandestinely together…where was Chelsea during the attack?

I sit up in bed. The note.

With the events of the day, I forgot about the newest letter. I climb out of bed and dig it out from my pants pocket. The folded page is wet, the paper is welded together. “Shit.”

“What is it?” Rhys asks, now alert.

I fill him in on where I located the note and what it said. I lay it on the table to dry, hoping it’s salvageable. “The author thinks it’s time for us to meet,” I say.

“That would not be good, Lakin. Putting you on their terms.”

I nod. “I know this. I honestly thought it was another attempt to scare me away.” But the timing. Who followed us to the Tiki Hive? “Chelsea would’ve had just enough time to deliver the note and rush home before I showed up there.” It’s plausible, but… “Is the author of the note the killer?”

Rhys runs a hand through his disheveled hair. “Not to sound sexist, but I never looked too hard at Chelsea, because that level of sadistic revenge falls too outside the profile of a woman murderer. To kill a mother and her unborn baby…that’s highly atypical.”

Atypical or not, it gives her motive. How badly did she want me out of Drew’s life?

“But if Chelsea sent the first note, it could be theorized that, after a failed attempt to get rid of you and the pregnancy, she wanted to scare you away.”

I crawl into bed and lay next to Rhys. I rest my hand on his bare chest. “We’ll look into her harder. Tomorrow.”

He kisses the top of my head, and it feels so natural. This new ease between us, as if there was never any reason to fear us losing what we built together.

“One last thing,” he says. “Did you listen to any of my messages?” He realizes my answer before I can respond. “Right. I don’t blame you. Detective Vale has issued a DNA seizure warrant for you. To compare to the crime scene and trace found on the victim. I mean, Cameron.”