Page 20 of Heat of Justice (Duty #3)

“What is this?”

“Uh? Oh, that.” Cody covered her hand with hers as Kim laid it on the side of her face. “Just a little makeup gone wrong.”

She certainly did not need any makeup to highlight her gorgeous lashes, and Kim had a pretty good idea of what must have happened.

“You got hurt this morning. During the arrest?”

“Yes, my face got in the way of a sharp elbow.”

“Did you see a doctor?”

“Nah.” As Cody chuckled, Kim observed an attractive line of heat blossom across her cheeks. “It’s not serious enough for that. I’m just sorry I look a bit like a failed bouncer for our first date.”

“Don’t say that. You look amazing, even with a black eye. Especially as I know this was sustained in the line of duty, taking a killer off the streets. Why are you blushing?”

Kim did not add that she looked deliciously sheepish doing so, and she stepped into her to wrap both arms around her neck. Waited.

“Well,” Cody grinned. “It’s nice that you care.”

“I do care. And worry.”

“You shouldn’t worry, but… yeah.” Cody’s color deepened as she admitted it. “A little bit is okay, I guess. It feels…”

“What?”

“Very nice.”

Heat flashed across her eyes, the raw kind that hinted at long-suppressed feelings and emotional fatigue. Kim recognized some of her own struggles in her gaze.

“It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?” she prompted. Since you let someone care enough to worry a little, since you had that connection, a woman to hold you when it gets tough. She knew she did not need to say it out loud.

“Yeah.” Cody’s expression confirmed she got it all. “Same for you, right?”

“Same for me.” Kim kissed her deep and slow and ran her fingers through her hair the way Cody told her she liked. It was a thrill to pull back and see that her bright eyes had gone hazy with desire. “Hey, Detective.”

“Hey, Counselor,” Cody grinned.

“Things are developing very fast between us.”

“I’ve noticed, yes.”

“Are you okay with that?”

Kim watched her intently, and Cody did not hesitate.

“Very okay, yes. Surprised,” she admitted. “I really was not looking for a relationship. But when I saw you at the station for the first time… Looking so gorgeous and totally pissed off.” She grinned again. “Temper can be alluring, and it sure was the case with you. Then you told me about your psychic ability... I was intrigued and pretty helplessly attracted to you, Kim.”

“I felt the same way.”

“You hid it extremely well.”

“Mm. Yes. I’m glad I don’t have to hide my feelings for you anymore.”

“Right. And I’m glad I didn’t have to throw you in jail for murder, that’s for sure.”

“Oh yeah.” Kim laughed. “That too.”

◆◆◆

Quinn was both adamant and unyielding this time.

“No, Lia,” she stated. “The café around the corner is too far. I’ll wait for you outside the apartment door. That’s compromise enough.”

“Okay.” Lia sighed. “Okay, fine.”

“Remember what I do for a living? You think of her as Brooke, your ex-fiancée, who may have just gone a bit loopy in the head temporarily. Which is bad enough, given the tone of her emails and blogs. But on top of that, I see a full-on stalker with the potential for a lot worse.”

“I understand.”

“I’m your backup. I’ll stay within shouting distance. Don’t hesitate.”

“Okay, fine,” Lia repeated, and she kissed her. “Thank you, Wife. You excel at this negotiating thing.”

This got a reluctant grin out of Quinn.

“I’ll be watching.” She nodded. “Go on.”

Lia walked down the end of the hallway to Apartment #20, in a luxury building that included 24/7 security, a private gym, a swimming pool, and luscious, deep carpeting throughout. So, it looked like Brooke was still doing very well for herself. Why in the world, then, did she seem to have gone ‘ loopy in the head ’? Determined to find out the answer to that mystery, Lia knocked on the door. She was, she would confess, a little nervous about doing this. She took a deep breath to steady herself when she heard movement behind the door, then frowned when the voice came through.

“Go away.”

Baffled, Lia frowned at the door, then knocked again.

“Brooke, it’s Lia.”

“Go away, Lia.”

A sideways glance revealed Quinn in the distance, standing tall with both arms crossed over her chest. Eyes bright and alert, attentive. Cop-ready.

“Brooke, I do need to talk to you,” Lia insisted. She knocked again as only silence ensued. “Brooke! I know about the blogs, okay? We need to discuss this. Please, open the door and—”

She stopped abruptly as the door was flung open.

“Lia. Please go away.”

Lia stared in renewed astonishment at the woman she used to know so intimately but now struggled to recognize. Brooke was always on the lanky side with a lithe, androgynous body. She used to be beautiful, full of spark and vibrancy. Only now, she looked more like she had spent the last few months at a Russian gulag. She was so gaunt! Her shoulder-length black hair had lost its luster and hung limp around her pale face. For sure, there was no longer any spark in her once bright grey eyes. Just pain and sorrow, and she was using a cane.

“Brooke.” Lia exhaled. “What—"

“Lia, I am deeply sorry,” her former partner murmured in a ghostly voice. “I apologize for everything. For these awful blogs and… Everything, okay? Don’t worry, it won’t happen again. But you have to go.”

Lia caught the door as she was trying to shut it, as well as a layer of tears swelling up in her eyes. Brooke held her gaze for a brief instant before giving a shrug.

“Suit yourself.” She shuffled back inside the apartment as if she did not care anymore what happened next.

Christ... Of all the ways Lia thought they might reunite one day, this was never how she imagined it. It made her feel even more grateful for the solid and reassuring presence of her wife in the hallway. The expression on Quinn’s face also left her in no doubt as to how much she disliked having to stay back. Hell, Lia hated it too. She gestured to her.

“What’s going on?” Quinn asked as she immediately joined her and took her hand.

“She’s not well. So, I want you with me.”

“Okay.”

“Not like that,” Lia added when she felt her tense, getting ready for battle. “I mean, she’s physically sick. Something’s not right at all here, Quinn.”

“Gotcha.” Quinn nodded firmly. “Let’s see if we can help her, then.”

She made her heart swell. “I really love you for saying that, babe.”

“No problem. I’m with you, Lia.”

Brooke appeared visibly shaken at the sight of both of them walking in. And especially when her eyes landed on Quinn, and she recognized her.

“It’s okay,” Lia assured. “We’re here to help.”

“I don’t need help. Please, leave me alone.”

“We’re not going to do that, so you may as well stop asking me. Take a seat, Brooke, okay? You look like you’re about to fall down.”

When she did, or dropped her weight onto the couch, more like, Lia sat opposite. Quinn went to the panoramic window and opened the curtains, flooding the apartment in bright sunshine. Lia looked around. Yeah, the place could do with a good tidy-up. Other than that, it still struck her as Brooke’s style. Spacious and artfully minimalistic, with random splashes of color from modern art pieces on the walls and a few rugs on the polished hardwood flooring. She fixed her attention on the woman, one she used to love with all her heart. Her anger melted away at such obvious signs of a significant breakdown.

“How are you doing, Brooke?” she murmured.

Brooke reached for a cigarette with trembling hands. This was new, too; she did not use to smoke. On a nearby table were an empty bottle of white wine, a half-empty flask of whisky, and an open laptop.

“I deleted the blog,” she said in answer. “Everything. I was in the process of writing you an apology.” She looked at Quinn and obviously fought for control as a tear slid down her cheek. “And to you too.”

“Good to hear,” Quinn said impassively.

Witnessing the beaten look in her former partner’s eyes tore at Lia’s heartstrings.

“For God’s sake, what happened to you?” she demanded. “You look half-dead!”

“Hmm.” A bitter wince.

“And those emails, the blogs… Do you have any idea of the damage you caused? Or was that your intent all along?”

“No.” Brooke said it sharply. “It was never my intent.”

“Then why?” Lia almost screamed. “I don’t understand.”

“It was a psychotic episode. I know that’s no excuse, but I lost myself a little bit in recent times.”

“A psychotic—” But Brooke was always so mentally strong! “This doesn’t make any sense,” Lia declared. “You need to fill in the blanks, Brooke. Do it now, please.”

“I spent three months in a hospital in Columbia.” Brooke patted her left leg. “Car accident. Broken pelvis, broken legs, perforated lung… I almost didn’t make it. This was followed by a few weeks of rehab. Still need a cane, as you can see.”

It was a shock to find all this out.

“Why didn’t you call me then?” Lia asked as Quinn came to sit next to her and gently rubbed a hand over her back. “I would have come to help you!”

Brooke flashed a sad smile. “I know you would.”

“And?”

“I had no right to ask you for help.”

“Why the hell not?”

“After the way I let you down before? When your dad was in the last year of his life and you wanted to look after him? No.” Brooke gritted her teeth. “I have no right to ask you for help.”

“Oh, Brooke…” Lia exhaled in sheer frustration. Even when they were together, the woman was so fiercely independent that it was a source of friction now and then. “I thought you knew we were friends. You used to send me postcards from all corners of the world! I never held a grudge against you.”

“I never forgot you,” Brooke admitted in a whisper. Again, she looked at Quinn, then away quickly. “I never stopped loving you.”

At a loss, Lia exchanged a glance with her wife. Quinn kept a hand on the back of her neck, squeezing gently.

“Which drug was it, Brooke?” she asked in a surprisingly gentle voice. “What did they put you on during your treatment in Columbia?”

Brooke’s face was grim as she returned her gaze.

“At first, it was morphine,” she said. “Intravenously and on demand, since the pain was so bad. Then, when I came back to the States, it was a mix of Vicodin and Oxycontin.”

Opioid drugs, Lia thought. Oh, God.

“There were complications with my hip, and I had to have surgery again. So, more drugs. I started drinking.” Brooke shook her head. “Started emailing your old address, Lia. Knowing you wouldn’t reply, so it was safe to do so.”

What it really was, though Lia did not say it, was desperate. Terribly sad and a little bit insane, too.

“After a while, I got confused. Started feeling angry at your lack of reply. I forgot the email address was no longer active. Forgot I didn’t want to ask you for help in the first place. I wrote more stupid shit, posted it on the internet.”

“You researched me,” Quinn said.

“Yes.”

“In great detail.”

“Yes, I did.”

“That took some planning. And a good level of coherence, I’d say.”

Brooke bit hard enough on her bottom lip to make herself flinch.

“I was coming and going. But I am sorry,” she repeated. “I hate what I did. I haven’t been myself in a while.”

“You seem pretty lucid right now,” Quinn insisted.

“I went out the other day. Drunk out of my head. Ended up falling over and passing out. I was in the hospital for two days.” She sneered. “Again. So I’m lucid enough.”

“Where are you going now?” Lia asked when she started to get up.

“Bathroom,” Brooke mumbled. “I need to brush my teeth and splash water on my face. Give me a few minutes to freshen up, okay? I didn’t know you were coming.”

“Of course, no problem.”

“I’m sorry, Lia,” Quinn murmured after she left.

Lia heaved a big sigh. “Do you believe her?”

“Yes. She’s in bad shape and tells a sadly common story about getting hooked on pain meds.”

“She does look like an addict.”

“Yeah.” Quinn squeezed her hand. “How do you feel?”

“Sad. Not guilty,” Lia added, preempting her asking. “I do want to help her. Brooke has no immediate family. No friends either, or just really shitty ones, to let her spiral so far down into this hell.” Her anger flared. “She needs rehab.”

“Oh, that’s for sure.”

“And people who care.”

“Mm.” Quinn flashed a thoughtful smile. “What are you saying, Lia?”