Page 36 of Fatal Deception
But when he spoke again, most of his anger had fizzled into a sad kind of bitterness. “You know what the worst part is? I would have stayed. I offered to stay. Be a dad, because the father was dead, and I’d loved him too. And after all that—cheating on me with my best friend, mourning him with me when he was killed, telling me she was pregnant withmykid—she still said no.”
“That’s…”
“It was a long time ago.” He stepped away from her hand. “I don’t know why I…” He shook his head. “We need to eat something, get some sleep.”
“We’ll do scrambled eggs and toast. Not exactly gourmet, but it’s all I got.” She limped over to the counter, tears burning in her eyes. He wouldnotappreciate them, so she blinked them back as best she could as she scrambled the eggs, sliced some bread and tossed it in the toaster.
He got out plates. She was out of juice, and it was too late for coffee, so he filled glasses with ice water. They worked in easysilence as they got the meal ready and then sat at the table and ate it.
She managed two bites before she couldn’t take it anymore. “Tell me the whole story, Copeland. I think you’ll feel better.”
He shook his head, merely pushing the eggs around on his plate. “There’s no feeling better.”
“Maybe. But bottling it up… Believe it or not, I get it. I’d rather never talk about a lot of things, but Rosalie always makes me. And it’s usually better. It’s like…you know, getting the toxins out. Have you ever talked to anyone about it?”
“My parents know everything.”
“But have you ever…laid it all out? Told the whole story. Got it out of your system? The grief doesn’t just disappear—how could it? But everything’s magnified when you just hold it in. Until one day, it explodes.” She mimed the explosion with her hands.
“You mean like dumping that all out on a near stranger.”
“I think cohabitating has moved us up from stranger to at least some form of acquaintance. Maybe even friend. The kind of friend that lends an ear when someone needs it.” She refused to look away, instead held his hurting gaze. “Like it or not, admit it or not, you need it.”
THERE WAS JUSTsomething about her. Against all his normal excuses and certainties, Audra dug under something. She weakened that wall he’d built between himself and the past. He didn’twantto go back there, but she made it sound like he had to.
Like he might actually survive if he did.
Copeland wanted to resist that pull. Resist this…connection. But she was just sitting there, looking at him, pretending like she knew how to make all this pain go away, and he was desperate enough to listen to her.
“We grew up together, Ethan and I. Became cops together. I went into the detective bureau. He went into SWAT. He liked the immediate danger. I liked the puzzle. I met Danielle while we were out one night, started dating her, got married. He gave me a hard time about tying myself down, but when we bought a house, he bought the one next door. I figured someday he’d settle down too, we’d raise our families next to each other. Our wives could be friends. It’s hard being a cop’s wife. Good to have community.”
It still hurt, a deep, pounding pain that he thought he’d never escape. Those dreams he’d had for a future, and just how almost everyone he’d loved and trusted had made it impossible.
But he wasn’t one of those guys who blamed everyone else. He’d had to look at himself clearly and honestly to make the decisions he had. And one of the honest truths he’d uncovered was that he maybe kind of deserved it.
“I loved being a detective once I made my way up the chain. I threw myself into cases. I wasn’t home. The job became my life, and Danielle became someone…at home to handle everything. Ethan worked different hours than I did, so he helped her out. I can’t be shocked she cheated. I can’t begrudge her that.” He’d worked very hard to believe it.
But Audra’s words were hard, surprisingly hard from such a soft woman. “You can. You should. You got married. You made vows. The least she could have done if she wanted to break them was tell you that. Up front. And what about him? Yourfriend? He owed you more. Better.”
Copeland shook his head. Maybe that wasn’t altogether untrue, but… “It’s complicated.”
“I don’t doubt it, Copeland. And no one’s a mustache-twirling villain here, but the truth is pretty simple. Hard, but simple. They wanted the easy way out, and you don’t get to blame that on yourself.”
He let out a long breath. Wondering if he’d ever feel more like a stab-wound victim, always just barely surviving bleeding out.
It was easier to blame himself, because then he could live with it. If it was his fault, his mistakes, then he deserved it. And he handled that a lot better than thinking he didn’t.
“So your wife and your best friend betrayed you. And they werewrong,” Audra said, so firmly, like she knew, even though she’d never met Ethan or Danielle. Never known him as he’d been back then.
It was disorienting.
“She was pregnant. Was it his?” She asked it so matter-of-factly, but it didn’t make him feel matter-of-fact. Nothing could.
“Before I knew she was pregnant, maybe even before she knew, Ethan was shot and killed in a hostage situation. It was rough. I thought it was odd how hard Danielle took it, but then I decided it was about…me. She was worried it could happen to me. It changed my perspective. I realized all the ways I’d been failing at being everything outside of a detective. Then she told me she was pregnant and I… I wanted that. A shot at that. The kind of family I’d had growing up. My parents are great. My childhood was great. I just thought, hey, I can make that happen. I could learn something from losing Ethan. It wouldn’t have been in vain.”
Sometimes, he wondered if that had been the worst part. That he’d wanted to make something good out of the bad and just gotten more and more bad in return.
“It lasted a few months. I went to appointments. We started planning a nursery. I thought…things were going to be okay. I was going to make up everything I’d screwed up. Then one night we got in a fight. I don’t even remember about what. Something small, I’m sure, and she said she wished it was me that had died instead, at least then the baby’s real father would be around.”