Page 10 of Before We Were Us

“What? Tell me that man doesn’t look like he’d be real damn good in the driver's seat. Those hands, and that mouth.” She bites her lip. “I’m telling you Brynn either you take him for a test-drive or I might have to jump him myself.”

She walks away laughing and I already know she’d never do that, but honestly the idea still sours in my stomach.

I spend the next several hours continuing to mingle with the staff and guests, getting everything set up in the computer for all those that would have comp stays. My father is a generous man. Most wouldn’t think so if they saw him in passing but his heart is gold.

Him saying he wants to pay for the woman’s funeral doesn’t surprise me a bit. I’d actually expect nothing less.

After everything is finished and I know Taylor and I could do nothing more, I again make sure to emphasize there is to be no one on the seventh floor until further notice. Taylor and I gather our things and make our way outside. Throwing our things into the truck we climb into the car and sag back into the seats. Looking over at one another a few seconds pass before we simultaneously say one word.

Marco’s.

Not only for the coffee, but for some much needed smiles. It all just still felt so sad and creepy that this man, Ryan Wills, was still out there somewhere.

I’d overheard a few of the officers talking about the dark marks around the young girl’s throat and my stomach rolled with the visions it created. She must have been so scared.

And his wife, what she must be going through knowing what the man she married was capable of. Maybe she already knows he’s a sick person, maybe not. The entire thing is so sad, and cruel.

After a day like today I think Taylor and I both have some wine in our future.

seven

. . .

Jensen

“He was held up in some motel in Joliet.” Connor drops a file with a mugshot before me. “Mr. Ryan Wills, Pharmaceutical Rep, in town for a seminar, married to Heather Mills, for less than a year. Poor woman is devastated, unable to understand how the man she married is capable of doing the things he’s done.”

“Did someone turn him in?” I ask, picking up the file. Hell the guy looks like the typical suburban husband, no malice in his eyes.

“Cleaning staff, they noticed the resemblance between him and the image that’s been broadcasted on the television for days. He’s being transferred and should be here later today.”

I nod, still thumbing through the file. My mind wanders away from the documents in front of me.

“You gonna call her?” I know who he is referring to. Hell she’s been on my mind for days. “It’s been about a week, and they’ve combed through that room, bagged up everything. Cleared the floor to be reopened yesterday.”

“I know.” And I spent all last night with my phone in one hand and her card in the other. But for some reason I wasn’t able to make that call.

“So, what are you waiting for?”

“I’m not sure it's a good idea,” I confess, still unable to look up at the man that knows me better than anyone else. More than my family, hell even more than I know myself.

“It’s a great idea.” He chuckles and I finally lift my head and glare at him.

“Seriously Jensen, are you supposed to live in a fucking bubble? There is more to life than work.” I’ve only thrown myself into work so deep because in the past I gave my all to a woman and she made me regret it. “Call her,” he pushes, “hell, go to her place, I would.”

“Because you have no boundaries.” He has no shame, no pause. Connor has always been the jump now and think about it later type of person. He didn’t consider consequences, he’d deal with them only if he had to.

“Because,” he interrupts my thoughts, “I don’t let anyone dictate my choices. If I want to kiss a woman, I’m gonna kiss her. If I want to take someone out for drinks, I don’t waste time building up to it. If our job and the shit we see daily has taught me anything, it's that tomorrow is not a guarantee. You can be in the wrong place at the wrong time and if that’s me I don’t want to be the guy standing there thinking I wish I would have nailed that blonde in the coffee shop when I had the chance.”

He had me for a minute until he veered off to the left. Always thinking with his dick.

“Listen.” He sits down in the chair across from me. “All I’m saying is you’ll never know if there’s something there unless you give it a chance. Don’t let everything that happened with Christina hold you back, because we all know she’s not sitting around wondering about the what-ifs.”

“I don’t want Chrissy,” I assure him.

“I know you don’t. I guess the question is, what in the hell are you waiting for?”

There was no escaping, no backing out, no pretending I didn’t just show up at Brynnlee’s apartment building, flashing my badge to get the doorman to call up to her place and buzz me through. She knows I’m here.

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