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SPOOKED BY MY display of reckless driving, Jack asks if he can take over the wheel. I’m so mentally and physically beat that I don’t argue. As Jack drives down the deserted stretch of road, my eyes start to close. I will myself to stay awake, since I’m sure we have more we need to do tonight, but it’s no use. I drift off in the passenger seat of Jack’s car; my last thought is of the security and comfort I felt while being in Jack’s arms again.
Chapter 8
Jack
NORA FALLS ASLEEP halfway back to my house. I keep my gaze firmly fixed on the road, not wanting to get even a glimpse of her sleeping form. She looks so beautiful when she’s asleep. She used to fall asleep a lot when we were dating. Halfway through a movie I’d look down to catch her drooling on my shoulder, eyes closed, eyelashes fanned out across her cheeks. Anytime we drove after 10pm, she’d fall asleep in my car, her head slowly drooping across the console to rest on my shoulder. Once she fell asleep waiting for me to take my turn while we were playing a game of Chinese Checkers; although, to this day I’m not sure whether or not she was faking it. She used to tease me about how long I spent deliberating while playing board games, making me wonder if she was pretending to sleep as a way to emphasize her point.
Only when I pull into my garage, do I finally let myself look at her. She’s slumped against the window, hands curled up between her shoulder and chin. Her dark hair has fallen out of its ponytail, the wavy strands now loose around her face. In a word, she looks peaceful.
It kills me to think I have to destroy that peace by waking her up, but we still have things to do. Don’t we? She sighs softly, snuggling herself further into the door.
I mean, maybe some of it can wait until the morning.
Are we really going to track down the missing body tonight?
I sort of doubt it.
Maybe a good night’s rest is exactly what we both need.
Or at least what she needs. Perhaps I’ll drive her back to her place instead, then just do some searching for the body by myself. Not that I even have much of a plan on that front. I don’t usually have to go searching for dead bodies; as a homicide detective, dead bodies typically come to me. Case in point: earlier tonight a dead body showed up in my driveway.
Nora lets out another soft sigh, and that’s that. I’m not going to wake her up. I reverse out of my driveway and head toward her condo.
Familiar bright red and blue lights greet me as I turn into her condo complex, making dread pool in my stomach. Surely not. The police can't have already come for Nora. Somebody would have called me— and nobody called me. I check my phone again to be sure, confirming that I have no missed calls or texts. Sure, I’m not on duty, or even on call tonight, but my friends should all know this is Nora’s complex. If she’s involved, they’d have definitely called me. This is just a coincidence. Some other crime must’ve taken place here tonight.
As if responding to my thoughts, my phone starts to ring. A glance at the screen tells me it’s Stafford, one of my coworkers, and the dread pooling in my stomach grows into an ocean. That’s right, I’ve got a whole ocean of dread churning around inside me.
I ignore the call, praying he’ll leave me a voicemail with more information, then move my car abruptly into reverse, ready to get the heck out of there. The sudden movement makes Nora’s eyes pop open.
“What’s going on?” she murmurs sleepily. “Where am I?” She turns to look my way and gasps in surprise. “Jack!” I see the moment she remembers everything that’s happened tonight. The sleep vanishes from her eyes as her face turns ashen and her hand rises to clutch her chest. The police lights catch her eye and she rotates to face them, eyes widening to saucers.
“The police,” she whispers, “are at my condo?”
I don’t answer. Instead, I continue reversing out of the condo complex until I finally have space to pull forward and loop around.
“Jack,” Nora says, “why are the police there? How could they already know what I did? Who even told them Ian was dead?”
“I don’t know,” I say brusquely. My mind is racing, trying to catch up to this turn of events. I pick up my phone and see Stafford left me a voicemail. “Stafford called,” I tell her. “Maybe his voicemail will give us some info.” I go to press it to my ear, not wanting her to overhear the message in case it’s as bad as I’m imagining, but she snatches it from me with lightning fast reflexes that I was not prepared for.
“I’ll play it on speaker,” she says, holding the phone out of my reach and pressing play. Stafford’s voice fills the car sounding more anxious than I think I’ve ever heard him sound outside of the time his wife’s nephew almost got arrested for vandalism.
“Reynolds, you need to call me,” he says. “This is bad. Really bad. I’m outside Nora’s condo. Man, they found a dead body in her complex. Someone in the complex reported finding it on a late night walk with their dog...Reynolds, the body is on Nora’s front lawn. Stabbed in the throat with a knitting needle…I’m here now. There’s no sign of Nora. Geez. This is bad…I knew you’d want to know. Knew you’d be worried about her. Heck, I’m worried about her. Call me, okay?”
The voicemail ends. Somehow the silence in the car is louder than when Stafford’s baritone voice filled the air.
“That’s that, then,” Nora finally says, a tremor in her voice despite the fact that I can tell she’s trying to appear brave. “I’m going to jail.”
“You’re not going to jail,” I growl. “We can still fix this.”
“Fix it? How can we fix it? The man I murdered earlier just showed up on my front lawn with my knitting needle stuck in his throat! I’d say the evidence is stacked pretty high against me. Plus,” she waves a hand at me, “you’re probably either going to be put on the case or asked if you know anything, and what then? Are you really going to perjure yourself for me? I don’t think so, Jack. And I would never ask you to.”
My hands grip the steering wheel like it’s the only thing keeping me from being sucked into a black hole. Like a black hole, this situation certainly has a very hopeless/there’s no way out vibe to it.
Well, except for the one way.
And I’m still not totally sold on the idea that’s been percolating in my mind for a couple of hours now.
