Page 9 of Loving My Enemy

All the patrons inside the bar now stood outside, some watching with too much interest, while others had their phones out because heaven forbid one event pass without it being recorded for posterity. “Gone,” someone said.

Wakingup in a cold sweat was the perfect way to cap off what had been a disastrous night. After the incident with Elka, the mayor had gone straight to Tyson, interrupting dinner with his grandmother at the senior citizen home, to complain about my conduct at the Black Thumb. I had to listen to thirty-five minutes of lecture from the sheriff about professional conduct. He threatened to put me on desk duty if I didn’t “get the bug out of my ass.” After that, I couldn’t wait for end of shift.

Not that coming home to a silent, empty home was ideal, but it was better than having my friends look at me like I was a monster. They just didn’t understand because they’d had theluxury of living in Tulip their entire lives. Some left for college, but nearly all of them had come back to start their adult lives, while I stayed in New Orleans and worked my way up from beat cop to homicide detective. I’d seen things—hell I’ddonethings—they would never understand. Couldn’t even dream about.

Women like Elka were how good men ended up hurt, or worse. They lured you in with their sweet smiles andoh-so-innocent-looking eyes, and when you were well and truly hooked, they went in for the kill.

I should know. I lived it and continued to have the nightmares as proof.

It was always the same nightmare over and over.

It was the end of a long-ass shift involving a two-year-old dead from an overdose, and I was so exhausted I could barely keep my eyes open. Instead of going to my apartment on the other side of the French Quarter, I chose to go to Sadie’s apartment. We’d been seeing each other for close to a year and I spent most nights at her place because that’s how she preferred it, and I preferred to sleep with her in my arms.

Her apartment was tiny as hell, probably less than five hundred square feet, but she loved it. I stepped inside the dark apartment and looked around, smiling at her mismatched furniture. The blue-and-white-striped chairs clashed with the yellow-and-green-checked sofa she’d picked up at a thrift shop, but it was comfortable and clean, so I didn’t give a damn. I don’t know what it was about that night that made me stop and notice the photos decorating her apartment, but I did. There weren’t many though—just one of her with her parents, a few with some of the girls she worked with at one of those private clubs for rich people, and three of us throughout our relationship. Everything about the place was tidy but slightly run down.

More shabby than shabby chic, but Sadie made it work.

Kicking off my shoes, I left them beside the sofa along with my coat and made my way to the bedroom. She would be sleeping by now since it was past three in the morning and I didn’t want to wake her.

Inside the bedroom, I knew something was wrong, instantly, but I didn’t want to believe it. I shook it off and chalked it up to the fact that I’d spent the better part of four hours processing a crime scene of a baby, but I should have known better. The room, hell the whole apartment, was too still.

Too quiet. The stifling sort of silence.

I flipped on the light, expecting to get yelled at for waking Sadie or for me to be pissed because she was still out with her friends.

When my eyes landed on the sight in front of me that night, I wished like hell it was either of the other scenarios. Anything would have been better than seeing her dead body tied to the bedposts, cut from throat to pelvis, eyes wide open in terror.

Just like the others.

The stench was so cloying, I had to leave, to stand outside while I called it in. There was no time to grieve as shock and responsibility took over.

Thankfully, that was where the nightmare always ended. In my dreams, anyway. In real life, it had been another few weeks before the nightmare truly began.

Reality didn’t matter as far as my subconscious was concerned, because that damn dream still came a few times a week, even years after that night. Sleepless nights were something I’d gotten used to over the years, especially because Tulip was dead silent this time of night. It gave me plenty of time to think.

Too much time to think about things I had no business thinking about. Like Sadie and her lies. The way she played mefor a fool until I was so in love with her that I’d blinded myself to the warning signs. If I’d seen them earlier, maybe I could have saved her. It was that thought that tormented me all these years, even though I knew the moment I saw her body, that the part of her life she kept from me had sealed her fate.

One of the things I learned since then was there was no point wishing you could change the past unless you had schematics on a time machine. But itdidget to me. It just fucking did—on more nights than it didn’t.

And like I always did, I grabbed some sweatpants and made my way down to the basement that my friends had helped me renovate. One side of the finished basement was a game room, complete with a flat screen TV, video game consoles, a dart board, and a pool table. The other was where I went when sleep eluded me; it was a home gym where I could run, lift, and punch until I could think straight, or until I tired myself out.

Whichever came first.

As I beat the weight bag with my fists, another thought occurred to me. Maybe it was time to head into the city and find a woman who could make me forget everything. Just for a few hours.

Chapter 6

Elka

The phone rang again for the fifth time today and I continued to ignore the sound, humming along to an old Aerosmith song while I packed up a few orders that needed to go in the mail today. The problem was, I didn’t have an account for pickup yet and I still had no working vehicle, which meant a long tedious road ahead. Another good reason to ignore the ringing phone. The other good reason was that the only two people who might call were the only two people I had no desire to speak to.

Technically, there were three people I had no desire to speak with, but one of them didn’t have my number and I was learning to appreciate the little victories in life. Like the fact that I hadn’t been shot last week in the parking lot of a small-town pub. Or arrested.

The phone rang again and I just shut the damn thing off. Why they insisted on calling now when they’d made it perfectly clear that I had outlived my usefulness to them once Austin had died, I didn’t know.

More importantly, I didn’t care. They told me how they felt, or rather how theydidn’tfeel, and I’d respected it. By leaving.

Without the constantly ringing phone, I could get back to work packing up about fifteen orders. Well, I could have if the bell hadn’t started ringing next.

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