Page 22 of Inferno

“It was hot and heavy, and we were at least talking about getting married.” She winced. Probably too much information, but he had to know where her morals began and ended, or they’d never fully trust each other as partners.

“Until what?”

“The day we got blown up, actually.” Samantha stared at the coffee. “I took a pregnancy test that morning. I went by the station because he was at work and told him in person. But we didn’t get to make any plans. I was due in for my shift, and he had a callout.”

“And that was the day you were thrown out of the house. You got a concussion, didn’t you?”

She nodded.

“And you…”

“Lost the baby.” She drew in a shuddering breath.

“I’m sorry for your loss. That must’ve been…” Romeo winced. “I can’t even imagine.”

“Neither of us took it well, but I could only manage myself. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, so I had my sister tell him to leave. He came back a couple of times, then came over to the house later. And days after that. Whenever he could.” She sniffed and cleared her throat.

The tears had been spent two years ago, but still every time she remembered it they gathered fresh in her eyes. Burning with the pain of the past. The way a fire scorched skin when you least expected it. Like when she reached for a pan she forgot was hot from the oven.

It had taken time, but she’d worked her way through it. Julio must have as well in the ensuing two years. But despite the grief that had torn them apart, it seemed clear he might still feel the same way.

Still, her mind insisted she remember that day. Tears streaming down both their faces, they’d screamed at each other in her living room. Pleaded. Yelled—until her sister came in and flipped the lights on and off to get them to stop. “He wanted to be there for me, but I told him to never come back. It was pretty ugly.”

“You were in pain.” Romeo paused. “He knew that, right?”

She shut her eyes and nodded. “He knew. But I told him not to come back, so he didn’t.” And she’d regretted it ever since.

“He obviously cares about you still. That says something, after all this time.”

But that didn’t mean there was anything she could do about it. Far better to just let things lie and move on. She could handle herself. She liked her job, and her apartment with her sister was nice. She was saving for a house, and she’d have the downpayment soon—give or take when the market felt like going down again.

Romeo pressed his lips together.

He had an opinion, but wasn’t sure she wanted to hear it? She knew the guy decently. Not well enough to be totally sure on reading him. The only person she’d ever been able to fully read was Julio. Even her boyfriend in senior year of college had been a mystery to her. She’d never kept it a secret that she wanted to be a cop. Then he went and acted all surprised. As if her choice said something about him and he wasn’t interested in how it made him look with a cop as a girlfriend.

“My sister would say God is doing something,” Romeo continued. “If things seem like they’re changing, then maybe it’s because He’s at work.”

“Is He?” She’d never experienced anything like that before. Seemed more like she lived her life, and God was just God. He was the Creator in the sky, a Father she had rarely felt a need to connect with. “How am I supposed to know what He’s doing, or what He wants?”

“Read the Bible. Go to church?” He shrugged. “I’m not the best at this, so I don’t know. Can it be simple? Sometimes I think we overcomplicate things because we need it to be difficult rather than just letting go.”

Samantha drank some more of her coffee. “I should get back to this research.” She wanted to find out as much as she couldabout the elderly woman who’d been the first victim. Do her job. Focus on what she could control, rather than what felt like it was trying to spin her into the earth’s orbit. Talk about being off her axis. She was going to work the case, because if there was an arsonist out there…

Safe to say the idea scared her enough she wanted to focus hard and figure this out before things got any worse. Before someone else got hurt or killed. The way Julio could’ve been the other night.

“Before you disappear into the job again…”

She looked at Romeo, one brow raised. Her heart squeezing hard in her chest.

“…when did you learn sign language?”

“I learned it when the rest of my family did.” She forced her face to remain impassive. “My sister is deaf.”

“Your sister.” He stared at her, a questioning look on his face.

Was he putting the pieces together? He wouldn’t be much of a detective if it didn’t even cross his mind that was who she’d been with at the diner. Samantha studied his expression, but he turned to his computer and grabbed the mouse.

“Huh,” was all he said. Then, “That’s cool.”