of a boxer.
'I'm a decent guy, Smoky. I don't cheat. I'm essentially honest. I'm loyal. But I have my moments. I can be arrogant sometimes, truly selfrighteous. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, I can guarantee you it'll make you crazy.'
'I know you're not perfect, Tommy. You don't have to do this.'
'Let me finish. I don't do drugs and I don't smoke, but once or twice a year I do like to get good and drunk. Maybe I shouldn't, but I do. It's my one excess. You've never really seen me like that.'
'I'm sure I can handle it.'
'I'm sure you can too, but you need to know about it. When I get that drunk, I get horny, but the sex is selfish, and of course I'll throw a tantrum when you tell me you're not interested in sleeping with a drunk. But I'll feel bad about it the next morning.'
'What else?'
He's silent. Tracing my palms, over and over and over. 'I've killed five people doing my job, Smoky. At least twice I've been pretty happy about it. I'm not talking about simple satisfaction, I'm talking about something that fell just shy of joy.' He looks back up at me. 'Of all my faults, that's probably the one that bothers me the most.'
I examine this man, finding some of myself in him. For me, Tommy has always been strong but gentle, slow to anger, prone to thinking before acting. These things are true, but he also has a little bit of savage in him, the ability to get his hands sticky with the blood of an enemy and feel well satisfied about it.
'I can tell you from experience, so long as it still bothers you, you're probably okay.'
'That's what I tell myself.'
'Me too.' Our eyes meet again. 'I do love you, Tommy.'
Saying the words brings me a kind of bone-shuddering relief. I've been walking under a crushing weight, the whole time thinking I was flying. This isn't the love Matt and I had. Matt met me before I was a killer, he knew me as a child, gave me my very first kiss. He was my tether to the world outside what I do, he and Alexa, and that was a beautiful thing.
Life has hacked away at me with an axe since then. Parts of me have been amputated or crippled. I've done terrible things to men who probably deserved it, and I have probably enjoyed doing these things far too much at times. I've observed the monsters, and been observed by them. They came away unchanged. But me? There's a little bit of monster in me now, and I doubt I'll ever get rid of it. Tommy sees that in me, and in himself, and shares the burden. The understanding that all that darkness is like a drug, that taking life gives you a feeling of power like no other, that the line between good and bad can be microscopic at times.
'Well, cool,' he replies, grinning at his own understatement.
'But I have one other surprise to pull on you,' I say. 'You might not like it.'
'What's that?'
'I want everything, Tommy. The whole shebang. I want my home back. So what I'm saying is, as long as all this love is in the air, then I want us to live together too.'
He blinks in surprise. For a moment I'm afraid. Then his lips curve into a smile. He kisses me.
'I can agree to that.'
My turn to blink. 'Really? Just like that?'
'We've been together two years, Smoky. I wouldn't call it sudden.'
'Good point. So that's a yes?'
'Of course it's a yes.'
He takes my face in his and the kiss he gives me this time contains all the passion we've been withholding.
I come away breathless and needy. 'Now that the love stuff is out of the way, can we get down to the fucking?' I growl.
'So romantic,' he murmurs, kissing my neck, feeling my breasts. I pull his head away and make him look at me. 'I mean it, Tommy. The last two days have been rough. I don't need tender loving tonight. Think cat in heat.'
He answers with action, sweeping me into his arms and heading up the stairs to the bedroom. He dumps me on the bed without ceremony and starts to get undressed. I do the same, overwhelmed with need and the simplest desire of all: closeness.
Within the half hour, I am using God's name in proximity to the profane again, as I reach for more, more, more. In this moment, all things considered, I somehow don't think He'll mind.
31
THIS MORNING I WOKE UP WITH TOMMY'S LEG DRAPED across my belly and bedsheets that smelled of last night's sex. Most of all, I woke up happy. I was at the crest of a case that was about to get even more explosive, chasing a killer with the biggest body count of my career, and I felt good. Focused. Ready for the challenge. I bounded from bed to the shower, washing Tommy off me with some regret. I was almost done when he joined me. He bumped against me with his morning erection.
'I know what you want for breakfast,' I said, moving into him.
'Make it quick. I have to get in early today.'
He obliged with gusto and ten minutes later he was washing me off him while I ransacked my closet for clothes to wear. I pulled my hair back into its customary ponytail, and whistled while I fastened the straps on my shoes. Tommy appeared at the door of the bathroom, toweling his hair. I took a moment to look him over from head to toe.
'Yum, yum,' I said, and he laughed.
'You out the door?'
I checked my watch and bounced off the bed. I went to him, leaning up to give him a kiss on the lips while letting my hand luxuriate in his chest hair for a moment.
'Yes, gotta run.' I headed to the door of the bedroom before remembering the most important thing. I turned around. 'I love you,' I said.
He grinned, and that became the most beautiful part of him to me. 'I love you too. Call me later.'
I agreed by blowing him a kiss and went downstairs, inhaled a cup of coffee, and hit the road.
I'm almost to work now, and I allow myself a moment to bask in the fact that I've told a man that I love him again, and meant it. I remember Callie's smiling when she told me she was sure about Sam. You were right, Callie. It does feel great. I'd forgotten. The internal voice that'd been bugging me is nowhere to be found. Matt's ghost isn't around right now, though I'm sure he'll show up again at some point. I understand that hoping to dispel him and Alexa permanently is an unrealistic expectation. They'll show up forever, off and on, and not always in a good way. I imagine they'll be there at my deathbed.
It occurs to me that I've been helped by a monster once again, however indirectly. The Preacher had preached about the value of truth. I'd done what he said and sure enough, I was better for it. I am not grateful.
I ARRIVE TO FIND JAMES already there, along with Jezebel.
'Just who I wanted to see,' I say. 'I think I know how he's been getting his information.'
I explain.
'It makes sense,' James agrees. 'It fits with the religious paradigm. He likes technology. Infiltrating support groups and hoping to strike up a conversation with the right victim is too hit and miss; bugging the confessionals would be precision targeting.'
'If I'm right, the common denominator to all victims will be that they were practicing Catholics. We need to figure out a way to verify that without giving away the reason we want to know.'
'What do we want to know?' Callie enters with her coffee in one hand, donuts in the other. Alan follows behind her. I lay out my hypothesis again.
'Me oh my,' she says when I finish. 'That's going to make some waves.'
'I want to avoid that if we can.'
James frowns. 'There's an ethical question here. We have some idea of how he chooses his victims. Perhaps we should go public with this, to warn anyone who's come clean on something major in confession.'
It's an interesting point, and one I hadn't considered.
