Arrest (A Disarm Novel) (19 page)

Patrick Franklin’s funeral was held on a somber Thursday morning with the entire Denver Police Department in attendance. Allison and I stood at the corner of Quebec Street and East Eighth Avenue along with countless others—some holding signs and American flags—to pay their respects as miles and miles of police vehicles passed by with their lights flashing.

Allison brought her husband’s police scanner and we listened with tears in our eyes as the dispatcher called a status check on each cruiser. Every police officer answered the call, all but the last one. The dispatcher called his number once. When she received no reply, she called his number again, her voice barely containing her sorrow. At the last call, she said, “All units be advised, Officer Patrick Franklin has officially reached his end of watch.”

—

It was nearly one o’clock in the afternoon by the time Henry made it home, three and a half hours after Allison and I came back from the burial ceremony. I had known Henry would have his duties during the funeral; I just hadn’t counted on it taking so long.

As soon as Henry stumbled in through the garage door, I could tell he’d been drinking.

“You didn’t drive in that condition, did you?”

He lifted his arm to show me the six-pack of Fat Tire beer he was carrying. “Relax, Perez gave me a ride home.” He sat down on the couch and proceeded to uncap a bottle with his wedding band, not bothering to change out of his uniform.

“Where have you been?” I asked, sitting on the love seat.

“I had to go talk to Franklin’s widow,” Henry said then took a long pull from the bottle, drinking nearly half. “And his kids.”

“Is that procedure?”

His eyes flicked away. “No. It’s just something I felt I had to do, considering I was there beside him when he got shot.”

“How did it go?”

“How do you think it went?” he asked, throwing his arm across the back of the couch. “It went like this. Me: Sorry I couldn’t stop the guy from killing your husband. Them: Oh, it’s okay. Even though it’s really not because now he’s gone.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“How would you know? You weren’t there.”

His sarcastic, almost accusatory tone snapped something in me. “Why the hell are you blaming yourself for his death?” I shouted, my anger propelling me off the couch. God, I was so tired of tiptoeing around him. “You didn’t kill Franklin. You didn’t shoot him in the stomach.”

“No, but I did kill someone that day, didn’t I?”

“But he was the bad guy, not you.”

He set the bottle down with a thud; it fell over onto its side and spilled beer on the coffee table, which eventually dripped onto the carpet. “I’m not the good guy here, Elsie,” he said. “I’m no better than that sniper who killed Jason.”

“I can’t believe you’d even say that! You are nothing like that asshole.” I stalked over, grabbed the sides of his face and made him look me in the eyes. “Do you hear me? Nothing.”

He twisted away from my grasp. “He was just doing the same thing I was. He was just doing what he believed to be right.”

That gave me pause and for the longest time, I didn’t know what to say. He was right, in his crazy kind of way, but I refused to think he had anything in common with the man who’d killed my brother. “That guy shot Jason in the back of the head. Unprovoked,” I said. “If you were anything like him, I wouldn’t be standing here in this house, carrying your child.”

He looked up at me, his eyes drowning in sorrow. “Sometimes, without meaning to, we accidentally turn into the people we hate the most.”

And damn if even in his drunk state Henry’s words made too much sense.

—

After a week, Henry’s gun was returned and he was welcomed back to work. I had to admit, it was a bit of a relief to watch him walk out the door with purpose in his step. I wasn’t naïve enough to think that simply going back to work would make him forget his issues, but a part of me hoped blindly for it anyway.

But I knew, as the front door finally opened four hours after his shift ended, that something was still very much wrong with my husband.

“Elsie!” a male voice called out.

I put on my robe and rushed downstairs, recognizing Perez’s voice. My breath caught in my throat when I found Perez supporting a moaning Henry by the arms.

“What happened?” I asked, covering my mouth. “Is he okay?”

Perez released Henry onto the couch, where Henry slumped over, his head bowed to his chest. I reached down to peer into his face, surprised when he smacked my hand away.

I grabbed his hair and pulled, gasping when I saw what he’d been trying to hide: a large bruise on the side of his face. I turned back to Perez. “What happened? Someone needs to start talking.”

Perez put his hands on his hips and shook his head. “We were just at a bar, taking a load off after our shift. Logan was talking to a woman at the bar when her boyfriend came over. They exchanged words, Logan pushed him, then just let the guy hit him. He didn’t lift a finger to fight back, didn’t let me come help.”

“Why didn’t you fight back?” I asked Henry, my grip tightening on his hair.

Perez shook his head again, concern written all over his face. “Listen, this is between you two. I’d better go home before Allison starts to worry.”

“Thanks for bringing him home.”

When it was just Henry and me in the dark living room, I was at a complete loss. Here was my bruised husband before me, slipping into the waters, and the hardest part was that he wouldn’t reach out and grasp the hand I had extended.

In that moment, I felt as if I had no fight left in me. My hand slipped off his head. “Why?”

He took a deep breath and pushed off his knees and rose to his feet. “It was no big deal. Just a scuffle,” he said, still not meeting my eyes.

“And the badge bunny? What were you doing that would make her boyfriend mad?”

“We were just talking.”

“Yeah? Were you telling her all about your pregnant wife who’s waiting for you at home?”

His eyes finally flicked up to mine. “No. We were just talking.”

“You should have been talking to me.”

“I didn’t want to talk to you,” he said. “I needed to talk to someone else.”

His words physically hurt. Even though he hadn’t been unfaithful, it felt as if he’d slammed a door in my face. I realized then that this was it; this was the thing he’d been trying to save me from back when he was having an emotional crisis. He’d had a few different reasons why he’d broken up with me, but in the end, the raw truth of the matter was that he’d tried to spare me from this hell.

Now, to see him going through the torture, I felt lucky to have escaped it before. I wasn’t sure we would still be here today if we’d stayed together and tried to brave his issues together back then. I wasn’t sure I’d be strong enough to watch while the love of my life fell apart in front of my eyes.

“I can’t do this anymore,” I said. “I can’t be with you like this.”

“You said you’d never give up on me.”

“I’d do almost anything for you, Henry. I’d walk through hell and back to see you better again. I’ll put you back together piece by piece when you fall apart. But I won’t stand here and wait for you to cheat on me,” I said, tears falling down my face. “There’s only so much I can take.”

His face crumpled. “I would never do that to you.” He wrapped his arms around me as the tears blurred my vision. He smelled of sweat and blood and his unique scent and I breathed it all in with an ache in my heart.

After a moment, I felt his hands press against my back. His fingers were shaking as he brought them up to my face, tilting my head up. “I would never, never betray you like that.”

My tears blurred my vision. “You’re not the most reliable person these days, Henry.”

“I’m sorry,” he said with a hoarse voice. His dark eyebrows were drawn, his nostrils flaring, his blue eyes full of sorrow. “I know I’m a disappointment to you. I tried to be the husband that you deserve, instead I’ve become this.”

I stood on my toes and gently pressed my forehead up to his bruised lips. He hissed and pulled back, licking at the wound I’d accidentally opened up. I knew the second he pulled away that the moment had ended, that the darkness had enveloped him once more.

“I’d better go take a shower,” he said, starting up the stairs.

I followed him, watching from the door as he undressed, taking note of the bruises blooming along his side and on his arms. “Is this how you felt? In Korea?”

He looked over his shoulder with a deeply etched frown. “No,” he said, but any relief his answer gave was quickly taken back. “It’s worse. The only guilt I carried back then was breaking your heart.”

He didn’t have to say the rest. We both knew that this time the stakes were much higher.

If I thought I was doing a good job of leaving my personal life at home, I was wrong. After the fifth person at Shake commented on my stressed appearance, I had to admit that maybe I wasn’t doing such a hot job keeping my problems under wraps.

“How are things?” Kari asked one afternoon as she took her break by eating a granola bar in my office.

“Good,” I replied like always.

Kari raised an eyebrow. “Yeah. No, they’re not. You look like shit.”

“You know that’s really not something you say to a pregnant lady.”

Kari didn’t seem at all apologetic when she shrugged. “I thought things were going well with the pregnancy? Are you stressing over that?” she asked. “Or is it some sort of PTSD from the shooting?”

Little did Kari know how close she was to the truth, but even though I wanted to talk to her about it, I couldn’t. Some things were best left between a wife and her husband.

“No, the pregnancy’s actually progressing really well,” I said and added a dramatic exhale for her benefit. “I’m just really tired all the time though.”

Kari let me bow out with that lame excuse and started in on her latest read about a hardass biker with a heart of gold. “I’m looking to date a tattooed guy with a motorcycle now,” she said with a wide grin. I smiled with her, sharing in her fantasy, content to forget my worries for those few precious moments.

We looked up when we saw Conor walk down the hall and stop at my door. And even though we could see him, he was polite enough to knock before cracking it open. “You have a minute, Logan?”

Kari flashed me a wink before leaving. Conor entered and stood in front of my desk, studying me quietly.

I grew impatient under that silent gaze. “Can I help you?”

Conor bit his lip, a dimple showing on his cheek. “I wanted to see where we’re at with the Lombart website.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “We’re just waiting on design approval,” I said. “Like I told you this morning.”

He gave a nod. “Ah, now I remember,” he said unconvincingly.

I narrowed my eyes. “What’s this really about?”

“Okay, okay,” he said, holding his palms up. “I’m checking up on you.”

I threw my hands up in the air. “Why is everyone treating me like some sort of mental case?”

“Because you were in a shooting!” he said, his brogue becoming thicker. “And you’re trying very hard to appear normal, but nobody is buying it.”

“I’m fine!”

“You’ve just been looking—”

“If you say stressed, I’ll kick you in the junk.”

“Tired and grumpy,” he said, sounding the same himself. “It’s always been Shake’s policy to follow up with employees who have had a traumatic experience, to make sure everyone is in a healthy mental space.”

“You sound like a brochure.”

He pulled out a small envelope from his suit pocket. “Here. I wanted to give you this on behalf of everyone at the office.”

I opened it to find two gift certificates for a spa package at the Veda Salon and Spa.

Tears stung my eyes at the thoughtful gesture. “I’ll be right back. I have to pee,” I said and dashed out of the room before the tears could fall. In the bathroom, I took deep breaths and tried to gather myself. My hormones were out of control, magnifying every thought and emotion. It was expected that I’d be a little emotional during a normal pregnancy, but to add in the stress of Henry’s issues plus the anxiety of another possible miscarriage made it so that I was an exposed, raw nerve every single minute of every fucking day.

“This is too much,” I said when I came back out, finding Conor still in my office. “I don’t even know if Henry would agree to come.”

Conor waved me away when I tried to hand the envelope back. “Come on, it’s a gift from everyone here. Just send out a thank-you email and have a day of pampering. Invite Kari if you have to.”

I shot him a grateful smile. “Thank you then.” I managed to hold off the tears until he left, until I sat down and tried to compose a warm and well-written company-wide email. Thankfully, my computer was large enough to block my face from view.

—

I woke up on the morning of our first wedding anniversary devoid of any excitement or even a feeling of triumph at having survived a year. I looked over to my right, only to stare at Henry’s empty side of the bed.

I stayed under the covers for several long minutes, feeling utterly and unrepentantly sorry for myself. This was the anniversary of our wedding; it should be special. At the very least, we should have woken up together. Instead, I was alone and wondering on the whereabouts of my husband.

I lifted my hand above my face and stared at my wedding ring, watching the sunlight catch on its facets. I thought back to our wedding, to that moment when we stood in front of the ocean and he promised to love me and keep me safe, to strive to become the man I deserved. It was only a year ago that we’d exchanged rings and danced under the stars on the beach in Monterey, but it felt more like a lifetime had gone by. The stars in those newlyweds’ eyes were gone now; Henry and I were no longer the same people. After everything we’d been through, I didn’t know how we could be.

It was heartbreaking, to look back and realize just how much had changed in the space of a year.

Henry burst into the bedroom, his face red, his shirt and hair soaked in sweat. “Morning,” he said and kissed me on the forehead before disappearing into the bathroom.

I stared at the door in shock and disappointment. When the shower started running, I knew for certain that he hadn’t remembered. My husband, who’d promised to love me even after his death, had forgotten the anniversary of what had been our happiest day together. I’d heard from other married people that men had a tendency to forget important dates, but I hadn’t expected Henry to be one of them. Up until today, Henry had remembered every significant event in our lives.

Deciding to end my pity party, I got up and went downstairs to make breakfast. If nothing else, maybe some decaf coffee and eggs would lift my spirits.

In the kitchen, I found a huge bouquet of red roses sitting inside a square glass vase on the counter. I blinked a few times, making sure I wasn’t hallucinating.

“You thought I forgot, didn’t you?”

I spun around and found Henry standing in the hallway nearly naked save for the towel around his hips. His hair was slicked back and there were still droplets of water clinging to his skin.

“I kind of did, yeah,” I admitted, touching a velvety red petal with my finger.

He came over and wrapped his arms around me, pressing my face into the damp hair on his chest. “How could I ever forget the day you bound yourself to me forever?”

I pulled away, wiping at my cheek, only to have him shake his wet hair at me. I laughed, feeling a ray of hope for the first time in days.

We prepared breakfast like old times; he made coffee and toast while I cooked omelets. When we sat down to eat, I could almost pretend that everything was back to normal, but I noticed that, even as he smiled, the joy never quite reached his eyes.

After breakfast we sat on the couch and watched an episode of
Southland
. “Did you have anything planned for our special day?” I asked, growing tired of the show.

“Nope. The flowers were as far as I got.”

“I have gift certificates to Veda for a day of spa-type pampering. We could do that.”

He gave me a dubious look. “I’m not a spa type of guy.”

“Come on, it’s a massage, facial, and lunch. It’ll be nice and relaxing. Just what we need.”

He stretched his arms above his head then draped an arm around my shoulder. “I want to stay in with you. Just enjoy each other’s company. When was the last time we did that?”

“Okay,” I said, fitting myself under his arm and trying to conceal my disappointment.

He sighed as he leaned his head against mine; there was a sadness in the noise, one that I felt down to my bones.

We watched another episode of the show, our problems set aside for a moment. It almost felt like old times.

As my eyelids began to droop, Henry’s phone buzzed in his pocket. “Excuse me,” he said, getting up and answering his phone. “This is Logan.”

I leaned my head against the couch and closed my eyes, letting his deep, gravelly voice wash over me. I thought back to our teen years, back to when he was only fourteen and his voice still held that young boy’s clarity and softness, often cracking at inopportune times. Then over one summer, my family and I vacationed in Virginia and when we came back, Henry’s voice had deepened.

I still remembered the first moment I heard his adult voice. I’d been in my bedroom when the doorbell rang and heard a deep voice from the entrance. I thought it had been an adult, one of Dad’s friends. Imagine my shock when I came out and discovered that Henry was the owner of that rough, masculine voice.

During dinner that night, my mother said to him, “So your voice finally deepened.”

Henry laughed then cleared his throat. “Yeah.”

“You sound like a man,” my dad said, eliciting a bashful but nonetheless pleased grin from Henry.

“Thanks.”

I hadn’t said much during that dinner, content to just sit and listen in awe to this boy’s new voice. Admittedly, I was a little confused by the way it made me feel.

And to this day, the timbre and rough quality in Henry’s voice still affected me in different ways, like a fingertip trailing down my spine or a thick down coat on a cold day.

“I don’t know if I can come in today.”

Henry’s words brought me back to the present. I opened my eyes and looked up at him; at the same time, his eyes flicked to mine then away.

“It’s my anniversary. I’ll have to check with the missus.”

I sat up and raised an eyebrow.

He pressed the phone against his chest. “They’re asking if I can come in today.”

I realized with a sinking heart that he wanted me to tell him to go. The anger in me flared. This was
our
day, damn it, and I wouldn’t give it up for nothing. “No. Hell no.”

He nodded and talked on the phone, telling whomever it was that his wife had not given him a pass.

I stalked off upstairs, angry that he’d even asked.

“What? What did I do?” he asked a few minutes later.

I tapped my feet, trying to control my breathing. “Nothing.”

“No, Elsie, tell me,” he said by the bed. “I want to know what I’ve done wrong now.”

I rounded on him. “I just hoped that on our anniversary of all days, you’d want to hang out with me instead of go to work.”

“I told them no, didn’t I?” he asked, exasperated. It was the first genuine expression I’d seen from him that day.

I sighed and let it out. “I don’t want to fight,” I said. “Not today.”

It took him a few minutes to calm down, for his muscles to relax and the lines on his face to ease. “I don’t want that either.”

We stared at each other for a long time. Finally, I said, “Come take a bubble bath with me.”

“I’ve already taken a shower, remember?”

I closed my eyes, feeling like nothing I did was good enough. “Fine.”

I didn’t know when it happened, but somewhere along the way, we’d become strangers. Acting more like roommates than lovers.

I took a bath by myself. I stayed in there with a book, soaking even long after the water had cooled. To be honest, I didn’t want to suffer even more awkward moments with my husband. Then again, I supposed it was why he’d been tempted to go to work.

Unable to stand my hypocritical self any longer, I finally emerged from the bathroom to find Henry lying on the bed, his hands on his stomach, his eyes fixed on a point on the ceiling.

“You were in there for a long time,” he said as he eyed me in my silk robe.

“I was really dirty.” I turned to go to the closet when he reached a hand out to me. “Come lie with me.”

I walked over and lay beside him, my body tense. We lay there for a long while, neither of us touching, waiting for the other to make the first contact.

Finally, he slid his arm under my neck and rolled me onto my side, gathering me into his warm body. “You’re shivering,” he said, running his palms up and down the silky sleeve of my arm. “You okay?”

When I looked up, I had tears in my eyes. “I’m scared, Henry.”

He kissed my hair. “There’s nothing to be scared of. I’ll always protect you.”

“I’m scared for us.”

“Shh,” he said and pressed a kiss to my lips, making it impossible to talk about the end of our marriage when it’d really only begun. He pulled his arm out from under me and shifted up on his elbow. He pressed soft kisses down my face, tilting my head up with a finger so he could continue down to my neck. When he reached my chest, he slid a finger along the lapels of my robe and gently drew them away.

My body reacted to his touch like an old generator humming back to life. It had been so long since we’d been intimate like this, it almost felt like a homecoming of sorts.

When his lips reached my rounded belly, he stopped and pressed his ear against it. “Can you feel her kicking yet?” he asked, glancing up at me.

“The other day. I think I felt it but I’m not sure. It could have been a gas bubble.”

He nodded and whispered something to my stomach before moving back down and settling between my legs. His tongue flicked out and teased my bud with soft little laps. I moaned at the contact, so swollen and sensitive that every touch sent me reeling.

I threaded my fingers through his hair, urging him on when his tongue slid to find my most sensitive spot and began to massage it. I groaned when he pulled away. “Where are you going?”

He slid off the bed and disappeared into the closet, coming back with our wooden box of toys. He pulled out an old friend of mine—the Rabbit—from its silk bag and proceeded to lube it up.

“I’d rather have you inside me,” I said, though I had to admit, it had been awhile since my old battery-operated buddy and I had had relations.

Henry kneeled between my legs with the vibrator in his hand and a grin on his face. Without a word, he slipped the silicone head between my cleft, the whole thing sliding neatly inside.

“Oh!” I was so swollen and tender, I could have come with that alone.