The Poet (Samantha Jazz)

And I really can’t make things right with her right now.

The last thing I’m going to do is to give The Poet a chance to turn his attention to my family. That leaves me two options: honesty or hurting her more than my silence already has. I opt for honesty. “Right now, Mom, I’m working a sensitive case, trying to catch someone who I believe will kill again and quickly.”

“Oh my. You’ve dived right back in, I see.”

“I have,” I say, watching the bald man leave the coffee shop with the bosomy woman on his arm. “It’s actually been good to be back, Mom,” I say, still engaged in my call. “I needed this. I needed the same thing that I think you need, too—to stop feeling fear. These monsters don’t get to make us cower.”

“I don’t know how you do it. You were right there with him.”

But she wasn’t, and I think that is part of the problem. Her mind keeps trying to imagine the horror and then denying that it’s real. He died in my arms. For me, there’s no denial.

“When this is done, we’ll celebrate, because you brought me into this world, and I stopped him from killing again. Because you helped stop him.”

“That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Stopping the bad guys from hurting people.”

“Yes. Yes, it is.”

“Your dad did that his whole life.”

There’s a twist in my gut, a stirring of anger that I smash and smash quickly.

A man jogs past me, his shoes a neon green, his baseball hat one of those sweat grabbing types that prevents me from seeing his face. The two men who’d been arguing over a document in the coffee shop exit while an elderly woman sits down next to me and a siren shrieks past us.

“Oh my, that’s loud. Where are you?”

“I’m out on my morning jog.”

“Just be very careful. It’s early and downtown is dangerous. Do you have your mace?”

“Mom, the part of this conversation where I’m a detective hunting bad guys. You were on that part of this call, right?”

“Yes, well, that’s kind of the point, now isn’t it? You live a death wish. Do you have your mace?”

I don’t even try to understand why me carrying mace gives her some sense of comfort when someone could just shoot me, the way they did Dad. I say the words she needs to hear right now. “I always have it on my key chain.”

“Good. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“Call me. Don’t make me call you.”

“I will,” I promise.

We disconnect and, unbidden, my mind flashes back to the long-gone past, to me as a teen, cowering in a closet:

I hug my knees to my chest and pray the shouting will stop, that my mother’s tears will dry. The sound of something crashing jolts me, followed by the front door slamming. Silence follows but I’m afraid to hope that it’s really over. Sometimes it starts all over again. Seconds tick by like hours and finally the closet door opens, and my mother kneels in front of me, and one of her eyes is swollen shut.

“Mom,” I cry, throwing my arms around her and then pulling back. “He’s a monster!”

“No.” Her hands come down on my arms. “No. You’ve got that wrong. He’s a hero who catches monsters. Sometimes the monsters mess with his head.”

I shove away the anger fused in that memory as several people step inside while the man with the scar exits. I don’t follow him. He’s not The Poet. The woman next to me throws bread to a pigeon, which is basically a rat with wings, and three more birds scurry toward us.

I stand up. The neon shoe guy runs past us again, and my gaze follows him this time. This is a populated street where joggers pass by on the way elsewhere. They don’t return. Hair prickles on my arms. He’s approaching an intersection and I dash forward, running after him. I’m gaining on him quickly when a group of walkers crowds me and forces me to pause and sidestep.

By the time I’m free, he’s disappeared. I sprint forward and stop at the intersection, scanning left and right, but he’s nowhere to be found.

Chapter 18

I search the streets surrounding the area, jogging in several directions with no sign of “Neon Shoe Guy” anywhere. Drenched now from the extra workout and the rapidly heating temperature, my desire to find that jogger hasn’t eased, but my opportunity has passed. Frustrated at my failure, I head back toward my building when Chuck calls me.

I answer, my gaze still flicking about, looking for the jogger who has managed to get under my skin, right along with The Poet. Perhaps because he was The Poet.

“What do you have for me?” I ask.

“Jesse Row’s a financial analyst who just took a job a few blocks from the coffee shop. He relocated here from Tennessee two years ago. Nothing stands out. No warrants. No arrests. His hobby is cats. He owns a couple of cats that he shows professionally and is a judge for some sort of cat organization. Don’t serial killers like to kill cats?”