Page 41 of Still Her

“Something’s going on. I don’t think I should get into it on the phone, but let’s meet up in Boston. We’ll make it happen. I’ll fill you in then.”

“Alright,” he responds hesitantly.

We hang up, and I go back to assembling the dresser for not even five minutes before my phone rings again. This time, the name Det. Morris is lighting up my screen.

“Morris,” I say his name like a statement when I answer.

“Jack, hey. This a good time?”

I glance at the half-built dresser and let out an exasperated sigh. “Sure,” I return.

“I’m in town for the holiday and I’d like to drop by and check in.”

“What do you mean, you’re in town?”

“I’m from here, remember? Went to school with Mike…”

The realization dawns and I remember Mike calling him a college buddy. “Right,” I acknowledge. I’m hesitant, but it’s not like this whole thing will just go away if I avoid talking about it. I reluctantly agree and give him our address. He tells me he’ll be by in a few before we hang up.

As promised, he arrives at the gate at the head of our driveway less than ten minutes later and I let him through.

Once he’s inside and settled in the living room I head to the kitchen. I need a beer. “You want one?” I ask him over my shoulder.

“Please,” he answers, his voice carrying as much frustration and tension as mine, and I point it out.

“You look as rough as I feel.”

He nods, his face pensive, after accepting the cracked open beer. “I’ll be honest, Jack. I came by to see if you and Mayzie are any closer to deciding what you want to do. I can’t ethically coerce you in any way, but full disclosure, I want to take this son of a bitch down.”

“You say that as if I don’t,” I volley back. “This is the woman I love we’re talking about. My life. What Iwantto do is lay him out.”

“And while I can’t let you do that, I can help you bring a stop to him and his career. Just think about it; we get proof to convict him, that’s it. He’s done before the paper even cools from the press. That would be even better than beating his ass,” he takes a pull on his beer and looks back over at me from the chair he’s parked in. “And besides… I’ve been there.”

“Yeah. I know about him messing with your fiancé, and I can more than sympathize. But is that what this is about? You want to avenge your lady by using mine to get to him?”

“Well, as you apparently know, Lola and I already tried. We failed. You and Mayzie have a shot at it now.”

“And because you were willing to put your fiancé on the front lines, I should be willing to do the same with my wife?” I’m keeping the volume of my voice in check, but not my tone. It’s riddled with hostility. “You think I should just give her a swat on the ass and tell her to go get him?”

“Check yourself Krasinski,” his head snaps up. “You have to know damn well it’s not like that. We tried to go for it, because Lola wanted to. I told her what options we had and that’s what she wanted to do. So that’s what we did. What wetriedto do. We confronted it as ateam. If he’d taken the bait, I would’ve beenrightthere, ready to move in before she came to any harm. Unfortunately, that one time she was alone with him made her so skittish she couldn’t get away from him fast enough, so when she tried to lure him into our set-up, he either knew what was going on or it wasn’t enough of a game for him. Either way, he was done. We missed the chance. And the time that’s gone by ever since has been… hard.”

That last sentence resonates. “What do you mean?”

“I mean the hell we’ve been through watching that bastard gloat at us from the headlines because of some deal he made or some act he signed with. Seeing his cocky, shit eating grin on the cover of Forbes, living the life… Meanwhile, the occasional distraught woman walks into my precinct with a story similar to Lola’s, that Eli made them feel defiled, worthless or frightened; that this scum cornered her the way he did Mayzie, and continues to take what he wants with no consequence.”

I’m quiet. I can’t think of a damn thing to say that would be a justifiable argument. He’s been in my shoes, and because he chose the route I’m trying like hell to avoid, nothing I say will make him understand. Maybe he already does. I don’t fucking know…

“Look, I can’t promise that if you and Mayzie decide to have her meet up with this jerk-off in New York that everything will flow perfectly without a hitch and we’ll come out of it victorious,” He takes another pull of beer, rolling the bottle between both hands. “But I can promise you that if you fold, this doesn’t stop. He keeps doing what he’s doing, either to you guys or to someone else. Maybe you’ll buy your way out and be just fine and he’ll leave you alone while you pick up the pieces,” he shrugs. “Or Mayzie will become an even bigger conquest to him and he’ll keep coming at you under the radar, making more cryptic calls from burner phones, pulling strings with other PR firms that you try to sign with… The possibilities are endless. Sure, you could change your phone numbers or issue a no-contact order, but who knows how he’ll react to that. It could piss him off and make him sic his lawyers on you again because you have. No. Proof.” He shakes his head, staring at the fire I have crackling in the fireplace that my lazy dogs are lying in front of.

“How would you have dealt with your girl meeting up with him, if it had come to it?” I challenge.

He sets his empty bottle down on the coffee table. The sigh he lets out is one of resignation as he stares at the floor. “Well, I admit I wasn’t as afraid for her as you are for yours. I’m a cop. I have training, resources, and a gun at my disposal.” He gives himself a humorless eye-roll. “Plus, I was going to be in a room nearby, listening the whole time.”

I finally get tired of holding my guard up and recline back, dropping my head back on the couch cushions, gripping my beer with one hand and rubbing my eyes with the other.

After a moment, Morris looks back up. “But Jack, I’d be there to do the same for Mayzie. I won’t let anything bad happen to her.”

I roll my head to look at him. “Just her being in a room with him will be something bad happening to her.”

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