Page 16 of Fatal Attraction

Except for the baby, but I didn’t dare say that aloud.

Carter nodded, then brought the full glass to his lips, chugging half of it down within two seconds. “This is all my fault.” He sat down on a barstool, hugging his drink with his fingers. “Blaire begged me not to go on another deployment. She fucking begged me!”

He took another large swig from his glass before chucking it across the room, and Charlotte and I both winced at the sound of the glass shattering.

“She told me she was trying, but that she was at her breaking point with me being gone all the time. She… She told me how lonely she was. How hard it was for her not having me there with her. She told me I loved the Army and defending our country more than I loved her.”

It went quiet for a long moment, none of us knowing what to say.

“War does things to you,” he continued barely above a whisper, his gaze downcast and rooted to the shiny floor. “I’ve been all over the world and I’ve seen horrible…such horrible things. Things that haunt my dreams every fucking night.”

“You have PTSD,” Spike murmured.

Carter bobbed his head. “I know this won’t make sense…but… Coming home has always been hard on me. Any little normal, human sound, whether it be a pen dropping or a microwave beeping, would trigger me. One minute I’m fine, and then the next, I’m back at war. Blaire took me to get help before, but the meds weren’t working. She did everything she could to help me, but, in the end, the only thing that fixed the problem every single fucking time was going back. And now, doing so has cost meeverything.I’ve not only lost my mind, but now the love ofmy life, too.”

“You’ll have to come down to the morgue and identify her body,” Charlotte said, wincing as Carter’s head snapped up and his eyes locked with hers. “I’m sorry, Carter. I’m so sorry. It’s the only way they’ll release her body to you.”

“I don’t even know what she wanted,” he said with a groan, turning and dropping his forehead down against the bar top in a loudsmack.“We never talked about funeral arrangements before. I mean, we have for me, just in case I ever got killed in combat, but never for her. I-I don’t know what to do.”

“Sleep on it for now,” I offered, checking the time.

Shit.

“What time is it?” asked Charlotte.

“Half past midnight.”

“We should get going,” Spike said with a miserable sigh. “Would you like for one of us to come pick you up in the morning?”

“Would you?” Carter asked hopefully. “I mean… I don’t want to interfere with—”

“Here are their numbers.” Charlotte pulled a pad from her purse and began jotting the info down. “You already have my number. Call me if you can’t get a hold of them.”

Ten

Spike

The three of us stood in the graveyard three days later, listening as the pastor spoke about Blaire, her life, and how she was now free from all pain, living eternally with our Lord and Savior. Carter was standing beside her casket, and I squeezed Charlotte’s hand when she bellowed out a sob as his arm lifted, grazing his fingertips across the portrait of Blaire’s pretty face propped up on a stand. Behind us was Harley, Chief, Captain Burgess, Peter, most of the SPD, and some other unfamiliar faces I had to assume were Charlotte’s colleagues from work.

Charlotte was the first to place a rose upon Blaire’s casket.

She pressed her forehead against the wood, whispering something nobody else could hear, her beautiful, distraught face cracking my cold heart in half. This was killing her inside. Hell, she hadn’t stopped crying since she found Blaire’s body, nor had she really been getting much sleep thanks to the nightmares she’d been having since then. Phoenix and I had been swapping out staying with her at night, trying to distract her and ease her heartache, but nothing was working the way we’d hoped.

We had to find this bastard, and soon.

It was the only way to end this bullshit once and for all.

When she was done saying her final goodbyes, Charlotte hugged Carter tightly, and then the others came forward and one by one, dropped their roses, Phoenix and I the last. Silence filled the air as the groundkeepers began lowering Blaire into the ground, and then we each bowed our heads when the pastor began speaking a final prayer, officially ending the service.

Carter thanked everyone who came, and as the majority of the officers dispersed back to their vehicles to head back to work, a firm hand wrapped tightly around my arm. I glanced up at Phoenix just to whip my head around to his narrowed eyes trajectory, spotting Crow fucking Wilson watching everything from afar as he sat on his Harley, smoking a cigarette.

Great.

What the fuck was he doing here?

Phoenix released me, his scowl darkening, and before my hands could lunge out in time and grab ahold of him, he was gone, stalking vehemently towards Crow.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

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