The Confession (23 page)

“This car?”

He showed me the image on his cell phone again. It was grainy and at an angle, hard to make out clearly.

“I don't know.” I frowned. “Maybe. I had a bad feeling about it. I rode the horn for ten seconds before he moved.”

“Did you see anyone through the windows?”

“Tinted,” I remembered. “Too dark to see through.” I paused. An image filled my mind: a flash of lights as I hurried across a parking lot. A couple asking if I was all right.

“What?”

“The night. At the bar. I . . . I think this car was there.”

Alec was sitting straighter now.

“I think . . .” I closed my eyes. The memory was unclear and slippery. The harder I focused on it, the more it slid away. “I was wearing heels. I couldn't move very fast. I'd parked, and was trying to go in, and this white car almost hit me. A couple outside asked if I was okay.”

“Why were you rushing?” he asked. “Was someone after you?”

I shook my head. “No, I don't think so. I was upset. About the whole you and Janelle thing.”

He leaned away, the scowl so deep on his face it looked permanent.

“That's why you went to that bar.”

I realized we'd talked around this, but never actually about it.

I picked at my fingernails. Needed a manicure. Yes. Definitely needed a manicure.

“Anna.”

“I didn't want to think about you anymore. It hurt too much.” I rose. “Please don't apologize or go away. I don't want to do that anymore.”

“All right,” he said after a while. He still wasn't looking at me. I shouldn't have said that. He hadn't needed to know. I could have made up something else. I could have just told him I needed a break from Amy and my dad's babysitting.

He finally looked at me.

“Will you have dinner with me tomorrow night?” he asked.

His telltale thumb was tapping on his side. Was he actually nervous?

“Yes,” I said. “Of course.”

He smiled, but his eyes stayed distant.

“I'll pick you up at six.”

“Are we going somewhere?” That seemed like a bad idea.

“It'll be safe,” he assured. He stuck a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the door. “I need to check some things out and call Janelle about the car. See if they can find a plate number.”

“Okay.”

He left, and was gone a long time. So long I fell asleep on the couch, and woke only briefly, to the feel of his safe arms carrying me to bed.

B
y five thirty the next night I was dressed and ready. Between replaying moments from my therapy conversation, answering Alec's hourly check-ins via text, and trying to remember more about the white car and its driver, I'd been preparing all day. Amy, likely having known Alec and I would head this direction, had packed some of my cuter things when she'd come over, including a knee-length, halter-top summer dress with a lacy white hemline. It was clearly romantic without being over-the-top sexy.

I'd pinned my hair up in a twist, leaving a few loose tendrils to frame my face. My makeup was perfect. I'd even repainted my toenails pink with polish from the supplies she'd left. I didn't know where we were going, but even if we just stayed in the car, I wanted to look good for him.

At five thirty-seven I checked the clock again.

“So much for making him wait,” I muttered to myself.

As if by magic, a knock came at the door. Alec had a key, so I suspected it might be Matt, returning from his extended break, but I was wrong.

Alec stood on the mat outside. In a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, black slacks, and his baby blue silk tie, he'd never looked sexier. His face had been cleanly shaved, but his hair was still shoved back carelessly. His eyes glimmered like the ocean under a clear, blue sky. And in one hand was a fragrant bundle of greenery with small white flowers—not the normal vase bouquet, but perfect nonetheless.

“I was going to wait,” he started. Then blinked. “I couldn't.”

“I'm glad.”

His breath came out in a rush. He rubbed one hand down his throat. I smiled down at my feet, feeling the blush warm my whole body.

“I look nice,” I prompted.

“Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “I'm getting there.”

I laughed. He laughed.

“God,” he said. “You really are the most beautiful woman I've ever seen.”

I moved closer and breathed in the soft, clean smell of the flowers.

“Are those for me?”

“Yeah.”

Yeah.
He really was off his game. I smiled.

“I love jasmine.”

“I know.” He let me take them, set them on the counter. “You said that once. At Max's place. You said if you ever got a house here, you would let it take over your whole yard, that way you could smell it all night.”

He had a good memory; I barely recalled that conversation. But then again, when Alec was near it was sometimes difficult to focus. I looked for a vase, but of course there wasn't one. I settled for a bowl, and filled it with water, feeling his eyes on me the whole time.

“Thank you,” I said.

He'd followed me into the kitchen, and when I turned, I was the one thrown off my game. Real men didn't get to be this sweet when they looked so hot. I could only process one sensory overload at a time. As if beyond my control, I reached for his tie and slowly wrapped it around my fist.

“You're killing me with this thing.” I gave his tie a light tug. “Every time you wear it, I remember—”

“Being blindfolded on my bed?” He smirked. His hands found my waist, big and warm. “Why do you think I kept it?”

I stepped closer, so that our bodies came together.

“Maybe later you'll let me wear it again,” I said.

His smile melted. I became increasingly aware of my mouth as his gaze lowered to my lips. They felt dry—even with my lipstick—and I licked them. His nostrils flared, and his grip tightened on my waist.

Maybe
later
would be right now.

He hissed slowly, and then pressed his lips to my forehead. “Are you ready to go?”

“I guess that depends on where we're going.” I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed in his inability to be distracted.

“This great burger place,” he said. “It's close.”

I grinned. “Close as in downstairs?”

“You've been there before?” He took my hand and led me to the door.

“This hot guy took me there once,” I said.

He closed the door behind us and activated the security system. “Hot, huh?”

“Smokin' hot,” I said. “Total perv, though. Always trying to get his filthy paws on my panties.”

We walked down the steps, admiring the pink sky and the setting sun.

“Hope you learned your lesson,” he said.

“Oh, I did.” I leaned close as we rounded the deck. “Now when I see him coming, I don't wear panties at all.”

He stopped, and made a noise that sounded like a dying animal. My eyes had fixed on the sign on the door, though.
CLOSED
, it said, in big black letters.

“Um?”

“Go inside,” he ordered. “Before I see if you're telling the truth.”

I gave him a wicked, teasing smile, and pushed through the swinging door. It was open, despite the sign, and at the sight of the people gathered on the far side of the room, I automatically jerked back. My back came flush with Alec's chest, and he steadied me with a hand on my shoulder.

Just a few days away from the real world, and already I was gun-shy. It was more than a little pathetic.

“It's all right,” Alec whispered. Then he stepped back and let me go.

Everyone had turned to face us when the door had opened, and it took one long moment for my brain to catch up. I knew them. All of them.

“Dad?” Emotion squeezed my throat.

“There's my girl.”

My father was the first to break from the pack and approach. In jeans and a polo shirt, he looked no different than he had the last time I'd seen him, but for some reason it felt like years since we'd last been together. I raced toward him and threw my arms around his neck.

“What are you doing here?” I looked over his shoulder to see Amy's smiling face. Mike was beside her. Alec's father, Thomas, was here as well. He was sitting at one of the tables beside a man with a big gut in a U.S. Veteran ball cap—Mac. Even Marcos had come, in full uniform.

“What are you
all
doing here?” I amended.

“We missed you.” My dad gave me an extra squeeze. “You look really pretty, honey.”

“I missed you,” I said, glancing back at Alec, who had gone to shake Mike's hand. “Are you all . . . this is . . . for me?”

“You're cute, but kind of dense,” said Amy.

I laughed as she jumped in on our hug, arms around us both.

“Who did this?” I asked.

“Who do you think?” she whispered.

Alec.
Of course he had. My eyes were getting damp again.

“It's all safe,” said Dad, mistaking my quivering lip for worry. “We met at the department, and came in different cars.”

“On loan from impound,” said Marcos. He stood with his thumbs hooked in his utility belt. It was amazing how much more confident he was in his cop attire.

I hugged him, too, and kissed him on the cheek.

“Come on,” he groaned. “Don't get all mushy on me.”

It couldn't have been easy arranging all this. I felt another swell of tears and blinked them back.

“Are you on duty?” I asked, smearing the lipstick down his cheek with my thumb.

“Who do you think's been running your security detail these past couple days?”

My brows lifted as I remembered the cop car I'd seen make a turn around the gravel lot outside. I guess that meant Matt's break really was extended. I hoped he was all right.

The next hour was a blur. I found myself in one embrace after another, and when I'd hugged everyone we started again. Thomas told me I looked ravishing, and after I'd reminded him he was blind, he told me there were some things he could still see—and also that there were laws against harassing the less fortunate. According to Mac he'd been sober for nine weeks, and I agreed he was much more pleasant when he wasn't throwing bottles.

Marcos didn't say much about Derrick with the others around, but when I asked him how things were going, his cheeks turned red, and he grinned and told me to mind my own business.

Amy and Mike were an interesting study. They moved around each other with a new comfort, leading each other into conversation, talking about their girls. But every time they got too close, they would immediately take a step away.

“What's with you two?” I asked Amy, when we had a second alone.

“Nothing, why?” she asked. “Did he say something? He keeps talking to Alec and looking over here. Do you think they're talking about me?”

I guessed that meant they had yet to move past the post-kiss escape into the closet.

Mac announced that he was just putting the finishing touches on dinner—a chicken with mojo sauce and mixed vegetables—and Alec went to help while Marcos chatted with Amy and Thomas joked with Mike. It was then that I noticed my father had stepped outside on the back deck to take a call. He was just finishing when I followed him.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked when he hung up the phone. “Your party's inside.”

“My party's right here,” I said, sliding under his arm. It was such an easy thing now, but there were years where even being near each other had been hard for me.

We leaned against the rickety wooden railing beneath the Christmas lights that Mac had left off on account of the restaurant technically being closed.

“How are you?” he asked. “Mug's been worried. He's been making sure nobody takes your bed in your absence.”

“Great,” I said, imagining all the dog hair I'd be coming home to.

Home.
I hadn't thought about that apartment being home since I'd left. Now the thought of leaving my little refuge with Alec seemed incomprehensible.

“I'm good, Dad. I've been resting and eating and talking to a therapist and singing in the church choir and doing all sorts of healthy mind/healthy spirit activities.”

He smirked. “I hope some of that's true, smart-ass.”

“Some of it is.” I rested my head on his shoulder. “How were the Keys?”

“Hot and boring,” he said. “But I had some good Key lime pie.”

I smiled. My dad was a sucker for sweets, an addiction he claimed came from my mother's baking habits. “What were you doing there?”

He squeezed me a little tighter. “Missing woman. Picked up a couple leads, but the trail went cold.”

“That sounds less like PI work and more like actual detective work,” I said.

“Believe it or not, I am an
actual
detective.”

“Retired.”

“On paper.”

I sighed. I was used to him not sharing much about his cases, and didn't press him further.

“Tell me how things are going upstairs,” he said.

I stiffened, and immediately felt a Dad Filter slide over my more X-rated thoughts.

“Fine.” I felt my nose scrunch, thinking about what Carolyn had said about waiting for something bad to happen. “Things are sort of complex right now.”

“I can't imagine why.” He snorted when I elbowed him.

The sky was growing purple, the water silver. It stretched on for miles, until it connected to the silver high-rises and beige hotels on the opposite side of the Bay.

“He loves you,” my dad said after a while.

It was a statement of fact, but it still felt a little uncomfortable. Like loving another man was somehow pushing him away.

“I know,” I said. “Does that bother you?”

His opinion mattered, whether I chose to be with Alec or not.

“It did,” he admitted. “He's been working hard to change my mind.”

How many times had they talked these last few months about my safety? My world hadn't crumbled when bad things had happened because I had the strongest net in the world to fall back on. I was fortunate in ways most people would never know, and that awareness humbled me just as it filled me with joy.

So much for thinking like a victim.

“You love him?” my dad asked.

I nodded.

He brushed my hair back. “Then one day all this mess won't matter.”

“You say that with such confidence.”

He waited a beat. “Your mom and I didn't have it easy in the beginning either.”

I pictured her sitting on his lap at Christmas while I opened my first presents. Snapping him with a dishrag when he ate the cookie dough before she could bake it. Holding hands when they came back from date night.

They'd always made it look easy, even when they were fighting.

I remember he'd mentioned this once, that they had their own story.

“I thought you guys met at the holiday ball,” I said. It was a fund-raiser my dad's precinct put on each year for homeless families.

“We did.”

“And it was love at first sight.”

“It was.”

“So?”

He inhaled. “She was there with her husband.”

“She
what
?” I withdrew from beneath his arm so I could look at him face on.

He smashed his lips to the side, scratched at his jaw.

“She was wearing this purple dress and these terrible shoes with these big white bows on them. The music started, and she couldn't dance in them, so she threw them into the corner and danced in her bare feet. I looked right at Terry Benitez and said, ‘I'm going to marry that woman.'”

I'd heard this story before, but there hadn't been a husband, and he'd said these words to his partner.

“Wait,” I said. “Terry was your partner? I never knew that.”

“I told you we went way back.” He hunched. “I didn't know she was married when I said that.”

“When did you find out?”

“Oh, about five minutes later when I asked her to dance with me, and her husband punched me in the jaw.”

“Did you know him?”

“I did.” My dad was nodding. “Nice guy, too, apart from his right hook. He and I had gone through the academy together.”

“So what happened?”