Page 27 of Judgments of Fire and Desire

“Hey, baby. What’s up?”

“Hey. I umm…” She remained silent for a moment, and I did too. I didn’t want to assume she would say what I was thinking she would. “Kyrie, I miss you. I haven’t seen you since last Saturday. I mean… I know I worked this past weekend, but I feel like you’re pulling away from me. Am I right?”

I stopped walking for a moment and closed my eyes.Is that what I’m doing?“I’ve been in my head a lot lately. I feel like I’m putting you in danger, and you diving on me to protect me did something to me. I understand your training and all what you were saying. As your man, though, I never want you putting your life on the line for me.Never.I love you. My love for you is making me pull away, because I don’t want you to get hurt. Your brother is right.”

That pained me to admit. He’d told me that I was no good for her, especially with all that I had going on. If his sister got hurt or worse, he said he would do serious time after he got at me. Not that I was afraid of his threat, because I wasn’t intimidated in the least, but Genesis didn’t deserve to be put in the situation she would be in if she stayed tied to me.

“Kyrie, really? I apologized for that. Being a protector is my natural instinct as a firefighter. Being that we were at a work function, I was in firefighter mode. And what exactly did my brother say that you agree with?”

“That I’m not good for you. I have too much going on, and you didn’t deserve to be caught up in the crossfire. Please, Genesis. Don’t make this harder than it already is.”

“Oh, I won’t. I love you, but I’m not going to allow you to play with my heart. I’m not going to beg you to do something that you clearly don’t want to do. So, good luck with everything, and I’ll continue praying for you, asking God to protect you, since you have such a problem with me doing so. Bye, Kyrie.”

“Genesis…”

She ended the call. When she said, ‘Bye, Kyrie,’ I could hear the tremble in her voice. I broke her, and that only made me feel worse. I wanted to call her back and try to get her to understand, but I didn’t. She was strong in her position, while I wasn’t. I wanted her in my life. I was a better man when she was around. I’d become a better man around everyone else as well, simply because she was in my life.

Even my mother had noticed the change in me. She said I was a little softer and more playful. I found that I had become more playful with people I loved. My mother had admired the change in me and had attributed it to me finally opening my heart to someone. She said that Genesis would be her daughter-in-law if I didn’t screw it up. Well, I screwed it up. I fumbled her heart big time, although I felt like I was only protecting her.

She was done with me. Her last line sounded like she wouldn’t talk to me anymore. I didn’t know how I would handle not being able to hear her voice. My days would be a lot longer, and my soul would be darker… like it was before I met her.

I walked into Sertinos Café and found a seat to wait for Detective Johnson to arrive. After dropping my briefcase onto the chair, I went up front to order a latte. I really didn’t need to drink that so late in the evening, but the temperature had changed tremendously. It was in the eighties when I arrived at work this morning, and it was now in the fifties. I needed to heat up my core.

After getting my drink, I went back to my seat and moved my briefcase to the bench next to me. Once I took a couple of sips, I saw her walking inside alone. She noticed me immediately. When she got to the table, she said, “I think I’m going to need one of those too.”

“Have a seat, and I’ll get it for you.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

I went back up front and noticed a man sitting in a car outside, staring inside the café. That must have been her husband, but I would ask. It didn’t hurt to be sure. Once they finished her latte, I made my way back to the table. I handed her the latte and asked, “Is that your husband in the Chevy?”

“Yes. Was he watching you?”

“Okay. Yeah. You know I’m having issues with that. What I have to tell you and ask for your help with is along those lines.”

Opening my briefcase, I pulled the letter from it and handed it to her to read. Her eyebrows lifted higher and higher the more of it she read. When she was done, she stared at me, her eyes wide. “Wow. Umm… I don’t know what to say. This isn’t good.”

“Right. What you told me earlier about them assigning my case to someone other than you only confirmed my gut.”

“What is your gut saying?”

“That you are one of the best and would find out more than they wanted you to know. My gut says I can trust you, Johnson. I need your help. There is no way I would be able to dig efficiently without access to the information you have access to. Please. I feel like it’s a matter of life and death that I figure this out, mainly my life.”

She took a deep breath and lowered her head for a second. She then looked outside toward where her husband was parked. Her gaze went back to the letter as she handed it back to me. “Since we’ll be working together, you can call me Stephanie. I’ll be calling you by your first name as well.”

“Fine by me. Thank you for agreeing to help me with this.”

“Of course. I seek justice. I thought it was strange that they took your case from me too. I figured since you’re a judge, it would be of utmost importance to get it handled right away. They gave it to Montez, one of the new guys. He doesn’t have a clue.”

I slowly shook my head. They wanted me dead. What they wanted more than that was for evidence of their involvement to disappear. If I had my way, that wouldn’t happen. Stephanie and I would find out who each one of them were and hang their asses. She took a sip of her latte, then looked back up at me. “So who are we looking into first?”

“Well, I want to start by going through the files from Darlene’s case. I think the evidence will lead the way. We will have to analyze every bit of it, like who would have had to sign off on things with her, which departments would be involved in each transaction. We will have to use every bit of training we learned to think analytically about all this evidence that onlypoints to her. I figured more people were involved and was trying to look into it myself, but…”

My mind went to Genesis. I closed my eyes briefly. I missed her too. My heart was aching, and I didn’t know what to do about it. I couldn’t have her in harm’s way. I didn’t give a damn about her training. She was my woman. It was my job to make sure she was safe. It was like I kept repeating my reasoning to convince myself I made the right decision by pushing her away. I lost the love of my life over this shit. We had to get it solved as quickly as possible.

“But what?” Stephanie asked.

“I had other obligations that caused me to put it on the back burner. Now that I’ve gotten this letter, I know I need to seriously dig into it. She killed herself, and I don’t want her death to be in vain.”

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