Two for Joy - Louise Collins Page 0,75
I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine, and no one expects you to be.”
Chad didn’t say anything back.
“I didn’t tell you, but … I went to see Romeo in prison.”
“Yeah?”
“I asked him to let you go.”
Chad leaned the back of his head on the wall. “And what did he say?”
“Well, I’m paraphrasing, but simply put it was a no.”
Romeo stared at the side of Chad’s face, catching the flicker of a smile before he controlled it, forcing it back.
“He did let you go in the end. You’re free again, and in a messed up kinda way, I thank him for that. For not … going back to prison and stringing you along, or going on the run, keeping you always wondering. He gave you an end to what happened between you, and I think you needed it.”
“I prefer to think of it as he gave me a new beginning.”
“Yeah, that works, too.”
“And for this new beginning, I have to start somewhere new, too.”
“What?” Zac stepped away from the wall and stood in front of Chad. “What do you mean?”
“I can’t stay here Zac, not with everything that happened.”
“Romeo, and Marc—they’re both gone.”
“My team turned on me. The press turned on me. Everyone that read their stories about my childhood, everyone that found out I’d visited Romeo, turned on me, too. I can’t carry on working or living here. I need to move away, start again.”
“Where will you go?
Chad took a deep breath. “Despite the mistakes I made, my questionable choices, my mind being flipped, and twisted, and reshaped to whatever the hell it is now, I still feel like I’m a good person, at least a part of me is.”
“You are.”
“And I’m good at catching bad guys, sometimes they catch me though.” Chad laughed and shook his head. “I still want to catch criminals, now more than ever, to right my wrongs, and find some kind of balance. Maybe a kind of justification, the more murderers I catch, the less guilt I’ll feel about everything else.”
“You have nothing to feel guilty about.”
“Yes, I do. Trust me, I do. I’m gonna ask for a transfer, a different city, different station and homicide team, providing I pass the psychological evaluation. I need to go somewhere far away.”
“Everyone in the country knows what happened, you can’t run from it, or escape it.”
“No, but it’ll be less personal somewhere else. The spotlight on me will drift onto someone else. Another killer will come out of the shadows wreaking havoc, and eventually, people will forget about my past, and what happened to me. I can be … Chad the detective with the dark secret.”
Zac huffed, then leaned back against the wall. “If that’s what you want, you really truly want, then you should go for it.”
Chad lifted his arm, then tugged on the hospital tag around his wrist. “First, I gotta break out of here.”
“Don’t talk about breakouts. Did you hear there was another attempt at Romeo’s prison?”
“What happened?”
“Some convict pretended he had meningitis, even pricked his body with a needle for it to look like a rash, the final stage. They were extra cautious after Romeo’s escape, and he didn’t even make it out of the prison hospital.”
Romeo snorted. A part of him, the smallest possible part, felt bad for Will.
“Faking a medical emergency to get to the MRI scanner, it’s clever.”
Romeo smiled at the compliment.
“I’m not supposed to say it, but I’m glad he got out.”
“Me, too.”
“And I’m glad he’s gone.”
Chad didn’t reply.
“It’s gonna suck without you. You’re the only detective I don’t think is a total dick.”
“Thanks, Zac, that means a lot.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Romeo stared at Gareth’s car, parked the opposite side of the road, on the curb. He’d rushed inside the hospital with Zac and had been in there for twenty minutes. He knew something bad hadn’t happened, they’d both looked pleased when they left the car, but Romeo hated having to wait to find out what was going on. He caught movement out of the corner of his eye, and saw Gareth and Zac making their way back to the car. Zac had a rucksack on his back, and Gareth twirled the car key on his finger. Chad walked behind them and dropped his hospital tag into a bin.
He didn’t make eye contact with Romeo, but walked towards him, even though the other two had already crossed over to the car.
“I still think you should stay at mine … just for a few days.” Gareth said.
Zac nodded. “Or mine.”
“Seriously guys, thanks, but I just