Forbidden With Me - Leigh Lennon Page 0,52
the darkness.
I bring it toward me in the light of the room, and in a large plastic bag, I hold a pink and black polka-dotted journal with a large A in the middle of it.
“Hot fucking damn!” I shout. “Let’s do this according to protocol. Let’s log this into evidence, and then once we’re at the station, we’ll comb through it.” I’m not dumb. The DA could catch wind of my feelings for Malia, and the chain of evidence would be tainted. I want—no need—to do this the right way.
“Yeah, I hear you.” Tugging for an evidence bag we’d brought in with all the supplies to pull up the floor, I drop the journal in there, while Higgins secures the huge piece of evidence, in the hopes this is what we need to stop this fucker.
“They’re scanning the pages in now,” Higgins says over his desk, looking straight at me. My thoughts are on the journal, but Malia, too, and what we’d shared earlier. I’d gotten off the phone with the patrol unit of two men outside and the female officer in my home, and they assured me Malia is safe.
Vanessa walks up the steps to the homicide division, her hair down and eyes puffy. It’s in the love I once shared with her, I almost rush to her because this isn’t the well put together bitch I came to despise in the end, but the real woman, only she let me see.
“Hell, she looks bad, old man,” Higgie teases, but his tone is concern for the boss neither one of us like on a normal day, but this is not a normal day.
I follow her into the office and don’t bother to knock. “Van, you okay?” I’ve not called her Van since the night of our breakup, and tonight, I’ve already used it plenty.
She leans back in her chair, her eyes fixed on the ceiling when I decide to close the door behind me.
“You know,” she begins, “I’m known as the bitch with no emotions around here, and maybe I do this, to be a bit tougher because I’m a woman in a man’s job.”
She’ll get no argument from me. I always understood this double standard. A man is just a hard-ass whereas an assertive woman is an out-and-out bitch.
“I get it, Van. I mean, I don’t know what it’s personally like, but I get it.”
Her eyes turn to me, tears welling along the edge of them. “But I’m a person who hurts just like any of us. And this shit, the past couple of days, poring over Malia’s files, the Mastille family, and now this? Fuck. I want justice for Malia Strickland. I want justice for the Mastilles, and I’m readying myself for the other murder scene we have yet to know about.”
“I thought you didn’t like Malia?” I agree with everything she says, but I have to address the out-and-out bitch she’d been to Malia this morning.
She takes a long deep intake of air, exhaling it in the same breath. “I don’t hate her. I just know there’s more to your attachment with this case. And, sure, I know you never crossed the line by not writing her back or encouraging her.”
I still, but why am I surprised Vanessa went through my letters?
“Yeah, it was a bitch thing to do,” she starts, “but I was marrying you, and I was competing with this person who you put on a pedestal so many years ago. I know you, Wells. You didn’t realize you had, and fuck, you tried not to, but now that she’s someone you can be with, it hurts, the connection you share, while in the many years we were together, you never let me in this close.”
I open my mouth to speak, but she stops me. “You don’t need to say anything or even defend your actions. It’s why, however, I was a little on the defense today.” She reaches for a Kleenex and dabs her face. “Okay, now that my little meltdown is over, tell me, did you find anything with the letters?” And as is the norm with Vanessa, she’s back to her calm and collected self, ready to solve this case. But for once, it has been nice to see the human side of her she seldom shows.
“Fuck, Wells!” Higgins’ shouts are heard through Vanessa’s office where I push from my chair.
His face is ashen white, but he’s not tearing his fixation from the computer screen. Vanessa, in her clickety heels, is