Starting Point (31 page)

Mitch nodded.

Kira sighed and his chin dropped to his chest. I squeezed his hand and when he looked at me, his eyes were filled with tears. “Matt…”

I blinked back tears, and turned to look at Mitch. “Don’t tell me what they did to him,” I whispered. “I don’t want to know.” The truth was, I couldn’t handle hearing it. He was just a fucking kid.

Mitch nodded sadly, and his silence told me that no, no I really didn’t want to know how he’d died.

“Was it McInnes? James?”

“We’re pretty sure. You know how those things work.”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“We’ll know more when the ME’s done,” he continued. “There’s DNA—”

“Mitch, don’t,” I said. My head felt light and spacey.
Jesus.
“Just tell me. Was he alone? Did he die alone?”

Mitch frowned. “Matt…”

“He was just thirteen years old.”

Mitch stared at me for a long while, and he and I both knew… I wasn’t dealing with this like a cop. Because I wasn’t one. I was on the other side of the fence now. I didn’t want them to think he was just another nameless, faceless, worthless street kid.

I squeezed Kira’s hand again and told my old cop partners, “He was thirteen. He didn’t have a home, or parents. He was a good kid, who was just dealt a really shitty hand, ya know? No one cared if he didn’t come home, except for Claude.” I turned to look at Kira. “Oh, Jesus…I gotta tell Claude.”

“Tell Claude what?” she said from the door.

I spun to face her, and I saw her eyes go from my face to Mitch’s, to Kira’s and back to mine. “Claude…”

“They found him, didn’t they?” she asked quietly. “Ruby? They know where he is?”

I nodded.

She stared at me for a heartbreaking moment. Her voice was tiny and broken. “He’s not coming back, is he?”

I shook my head. “No, sweetie. He’s not.”

She turned and ran, and I leapt out of my seat to go after her “Claudia, wait!”

I didn’t even get one step and my entire vision tilted, and my world went dark.

Chapter Sixteen

Kira

Watching Matt struggle with vertigo was the hardest thing. He hated feeling vulnerable, he hated the loss of independence and he hated how he thought that people looked at him with pity.

They never looked at him with pity. They looked at him with concern and love.

But he didn’t see that.

Matt didn’t see himself very clearly at all.

He leapt out of the chair, calling after Claude, took one step and fell forward. I managed to half-catch him so he didn’t hurt himself again, but two falls in one day had taken its toll.

This fucking day had taken its toll.

Vertigo, walking into a police takedown and now the news about Ruby…

I lifted Matt by the shoulders and sat him in the chair he’d just got out of. I could almost see his head spinning, lolling back and forward. I grabbed the wastepaper bin and put it on his lap, knowing nausea usually followed bad vertigo. He lifted his head, slowly opened his eyes and said one word, “Claude.”

I nodded. “Okay. I’ll go,” I told him. I looked at Mitch. “Stay with him,” I said, and ran out after Claude.

Arizona was near the door, standing with two uniformed police officers. “I tried to stop her,” he said to me. “But she bolted.”

Racing outside, there were still a few cops. “A little girl, black frizzy hair?”

One of the officers shrugged, and the other pointed right. “That way.”

I couldn’t see her anywhere up the street which meant she hadn’t gone far, and as I passed the alley adjacent to the club, I caught a glimpse of movement. It was the lid of a dumpster. Now shut, I wasn’t even sure if I saw it move or if it was the sunlight playing tricks on me. But when I ran across the street I heard it—a sound that broke my heart.

The tiny sobs of a little girl.

I lifted the lid and there she was, huddled in the back with her knees drawn up and her head down. She didn’t look up.

“Claude,” I said gently.

She shook her head.

“Can you come out?”

She shook her head again.

I sighed and lifted the lid right back. Putting both hands on the side of the bin, I climbed inside. It was a mix of flattened cardboard and garbage bags, and it stank. But it didn’t matter.

“Claude, I want you to come with me,” I said. “You can’t stay here.”

She finally looked up at me. Her big brown eyes were filled with tears and red-rimmed, her cheeks were wet. She didn’t talk.

“Claude, I know you’re scared and that’s okay. But you’re not alone.”

“Ruby…”

“I know,” I told her softly. “But you got us. And right now, Matt’s back at the gym and he’s not feeling very well, but he needs you, Claude. He told me you looked after him when he fell over this morning. He said you were the best.”

Claude just stared at nothing.

I had no clue what I was doing. I had no idea what I should say, how I should act, but I needed her to get out of this goddamn dumpster. I added, “And Oscar, he needs you too.”

She looked at me, but said nothing.

“Yes, they do. We all do. And you know what?” I asked. “I can’t be in two places at once. If I’m here with you, then I can’t be there with Matt, but if I’m with Matt then I can’t be here with you. And I really want to be with both of you, so I need you to help me out, okay?”

She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, but made no attempt to move.

“I need to go back to see Matt, Claude. I can’t leave him when he needs me, and I’m not leaving here without you, so can you help me out?”

Her lip trembled, and still she said nothing.

“Claude, I know you’re scared. You know what? So am I,” I admitted. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t have a clue, and it scares me. But we will get through this together, okay?”

She looked at me with those big brown eyes and fresh tears rolled down her cheeks. I held out my hand. “Come on, Claude.”

She took my hand and started to cry, and by the time we got back to the FC, Matt was still sitting in the same chair and she basically ran over to him, crawled into his lap and sobbed.

She burrowed into his chest, and he wrapped his arms around her. He looked over the top of Claude’s head at me.

For a while the room was quiet, except for Claude who cried and cried. Matt held her tight and kissed the top of her head and when he looked at me, silent tears fell down his cheeks.

“Matt,” I said, walking over and kneeling in front of him. “I know you’ve got a lot going on right now, but I think we should go to the cabin. The three of us.”

Matt’s blue eyes were wide and teary. He nodded. “Okay.”

* * * *

Falling in love with Matthew Elliott was easy.

From the first time I’d seen him, when he was running on a treadmill alongside Mitch and threw his head back and laughed, I just had to meet him. When my boss Chris had told me he was
the
Matthew Elliott always on TV or in the papers, I’d thought he might be some conceited asshole.

But he really wasn’t like that at all.

I’ll admit I was first attracted to his looks—blond, blue eyes, boyish good looks and fit. But then I’d got to know him.

He was the very opposite of conceited. He was humble, but there was a quiet confidence, and above all else, the man had a heart of gold.

That’s who I fell in love with. The man behind the badge, the man behind the media. The man that was brave and vulnerable, the man that blushed when I touched his face.

The Matt that no one else knew.

It hasn’t been easy. Actually, there’s been times when it’s been downright fucking hard. Being kidnapped and having my arm broken by some crazy lunatic like Tomic didn’t even come close to watching Matthew Elliott self-destruct. His physical and emotional injuries were soul destroying, but he’d come so far in these last seven months, and I did have to wonder what the effect the events of today would have on him.

First, having two serious bouts of vertigo in one day—a brutal reminder of his inner ear injury, and how he got it—then the incident with that Darius guy and a gun, and of course, Ruby. I knew it could be, and probably would be, a huge setback in his progress. I didn’t want him to go backwards—he’d worked so hard at moving forward, and he had come so far.

It was dark as I drove to the cabin. Matt was beside me in the passenger seat, and Claude and Oscar were in the back. I kept his hand in mine for most of the trip. Matt was tired and still a little dizzy, and even though he tried to tell me he was fine, I knew better. When I suggested the cabin as a getaway, even for a few days, he smiled and nodded.

We needed to decompress. We needed to regroup and take some time out, go somewhere we could be just us and talk. I didn’t want to get caught up with our busy lives and not talk this through.

We learned that lesson the hard way before.

I squeezed Matt’s hand. “You okay?” I asked, before getting out of the car.

Matt nodded. “Yeah.” He gave a quick glance to the little girl in the back seat. “Let’s go inside, huh?”

I grabbed the bags, and Matt walked slowly to the front door, letting Claude and Oscar in first. He flipped on the lights and showed them around the small house. “Mine and Kira’s bedroom is upstairs in the loft,” he explained. “You can sleep on the sofa bed with Oscar, okay? You can have a shower, some dinner and watch TV till you fall asleep. How does that sound?”

Claude just nodded. She’d not said a word since I’d got her out of that dumpster.

She barely touched her dinner, and spent the night just staring at the television screen, with one hand on Oscar. The dog had planted himself by her side since we’d gone home and collected him.

Matt was finishing washing up after dinner when I left Claude and walked into the small kitchen. I kissed the back of his neck, and he turned and wrapped his arms around me. “I love you,” he mumbled into my neck.

I pulled back so I could see his face, and touched his cheek. “I love you too,” I told him. “You feeling better?” He looked better.

“Yeah. It just takes a lot out of me, that’s all.”

I kissed him softly. “You’re okay coming here?” I asked.

He nodded and eyed me curiously. “I love it here. Why?”

I shrugged. “It’s just been a place where we’ve come when things weren’t great.”

Matt nodded then looked at Claude who was still staring at the TV. “Do you think she’ll be okay?” he whispered.

“I don’t know,” I answered quietly.

“I was about to call child services this morning,” he murmured so only I could hear. “That’s what I was doing when I fell over. Then she sat with me until your mom got there.”

“Oh, Matt.”

He shrugged. “Made me feel even worse. I felt like such a prick. And now with Ruby…” He sighed. “I don’t know what that means for her.”

I ran my hands over his face and cupped both sides of his jaw. “We don’t need to decide tonight. Actually, given everything that’s happened today, we shouldn’t make any decisions tonight.”

Matt stared at me for a long moment, taking in the features of my face. “How did I ever get so lucky?”

I smiled and kissed him. I’d never get sick of the way he looked at me.

“We have had a lot of bad stuff happen here. But for what it’s worth,” he went on to say, “we’ve had a lot of good, too.” Matt smiled. “I also told you I loved you here for the very first time. Actually, it was the first time I’d told anyone I loved them.”

“Me too,” I replied. “It was the first time I’d told anyone that either.”

Matt smiled. There was a tinge of sadness to the curl of his lips. “I know a lot of bad stuff has happened, and we’ve always come here to the cabin to recoup. But I love coming to this place. It’s like a second home.”

I slid my arms back around him and kissed his neck. I chuckled when he shivered. I pecked his lips and went to pull away, but he stopped me. “Babe, can we talk later? When Claudia’s asleep, I want to talk to you about everything that happened today.”

“Is everything okay?” I asked cautiously.

“Yes,” he answered assuredly. “I just want us to talk. There’s some stuff I’ve been thinking over and I want to discuss it with you first. Then maybe even Tamara, but you first.” He looked back at Claude, who I don’t think had even blinked. “And we need to talk about Ruby.”

I didn’t really want to talk about Ruby. Not yet. It was still too awful to think about. “Okay,” I said.

He smiled then, took my hand and led me out to the sofa. We sat in silence, staring at the TV until Claude fell asleep, then we finally went upstairs and got ready for bed. I was nervous about what Matt wanted to talk about.

When he came out of the bathroom, I had the covers pulled back for him and patted the bed. “Do you feel okay?” I asked. “Not dizzy at all?”

Matt smiled and climbed onto the mattress. “No, I’m okay.” Then he took my hand. “Are you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you okay?” he repeated. “After today. I haven’t really had a chance to ask you, what with the news of Ruby and then me taking another nose dive. I haven’t really had the chance to talk to you about how you’re feeling?”

“Matt, I’m fine,” I told him, again. “I really am. Is that what you want to talk about?”

Matt frowned. “Well, yes. Of course it is.”

“And?” I prompted. There was something else. I could tell.

“I’m going to leave the FC,” he said simply. “I won’t put you in that kind danger again. I just can’t do it. He had a gun pointed at you! Every time I close my eyes I see it!”

“It wasn’t pointed at me,” I countered quietly. “And both of those guys were taken down two seconds later.”

“It’s not the point,” he replied. “My job is
still
a danger to you. First being a cop, and now at the FC. It just seems you’re not safe around at me. No matter what I do.”

“Matt,” I started, but he stopped me.

“Kira, babe, it’s okay. I’ll find something else.”

“But you love it.”

“I love you more. A thousand times more,” he said. “Maybe I could find a job in a library somewhere, where the most dramatic thing that happens is someone can’t find a book.”