Page 56 of Somewhere Without You

Extract:

What Lies Beneath the Tide

Chapter One

Alex

The thin line beneath the strap of her cardinal dress was barely a faint marker against her khaki-colored skin. She’d worn it on purpose. Not just for the comfort but for the ease with which it might be slipped off her later.

Too bad it was a wasted effort.

She was attractive. Her honeysuckle hair was curled loosely at the ends, settling just below her peaked breasts—the plummeting neckline forcing them together. It was meant to be an inviting distraction that hopefully persuaded Alex to take her home later.

Another wasted attempt.

He wasn’t opposed to a nice dinner with a beautiful woman. After all, he’d agreed to it, though more out of obligation than for personal desire.

When Diego asked him for a favor, Alex thought it was a joke.

“You want me to go out with your ex?”

“She’s not my ex,”Diego insisted.“She’s just some woman I used to go out with.”

“That’s an ex,”Alex countered, his voice laced with humor.

Diego didn’t find it funny.“I just need you to get her off my back.”

Reluctantly, Alex agreed. And now, as he sat across from the slender woman, whose crystal eyes glazed over him in hunger, he understood exactly why his friend called in this favor.

A badge bunny.

He didn’t judge him for it—couldn’t have even if he wanted to, considering they’d all taken one home at one point or another. Even Alex wasn’t innocent. It was a rite of passage, a statement throughout the force with some guys competing on how many they could tally by the end of a quarter.

Usually, they were a one-and-done deal, but some were harder to shake than others. Judging by the woman sitting across from him now, Alex realized that Diego had dug himself a hole he couldn’t escape alone.

She was bouncing in her chair all night—one hop away from slipping out of her dress entirely, and Alex had no intention of being treated to a show.

“You seem a little tense,”she purred. Her blue eyes, glossy from the bottle of wine she’d insisted on having. Leaning over, she twisted a strand of hair between her fingers.“What’s wrong Alex? Am I making you nervous?”

He tried not to roll his eyes. Sure, it would be easy to take her home and bury himself between her legs, but then what? By morning, he would have forgotten her name— what was it again?

“Oh my god, Jessica! Is that you?”A woman yelped behind him, sending Jessica flying out of her seat.

Great, he thought, turning slightly in his chair and typing a quick message into his phone.

“Prick.”

“You can thank me later,” Diego replied quickly.

“Don’tworry, I plan to.”

Three dots appeared on the screen, lingering for a moment before disappearing. After a few minutes without a reply, Alex assumed the conversation was over— for now.

At the sound of his name, he turned to find both women staring at him.

“I was just telling her how we met,”Jessica said as if they were in some whirlwind relationship.

He plastered a smile on his face and reached out to shake her friend’s hand.“It’s nice to meet you.”

The woman blushed—her delicate fingers lingering around his a little too long before finally pulling away.

“I think it’s so romantic. You know her father was a cop?”

That explained it.

“Alex is a detective,”Jessica corrected, taking a step towards him. She lifted her hand, wrapping it around his arm and tightening her grip.

Internally, Alex groaned.

In a matter of minutes, he’d somehow become an unwilling participant in whatever pissing match these two were having over him. Not that it mattered since he wasn’t interested in either of them anyway.

When his phone rang and Diego’s name scrolled across the screen, Alex was relieved.

“I’m sorry, I’ve got to take this,”he said, peeling himself away from Jessica’s side.

Official detective business, she mouthed to her friend—who nodded as he slipped away.

Once he was out of earshot, Alex answered.“Are you calling to apologize?”He asked triumphantly.

Diego’s voice came in, short and firm. Alex recognized that voice—it was his cop voice. The one he used when something terrible happened.

“Alex—”he said, his voice cracking through the phone.“There’s been an accident.”

Alex silently thanked whatever poor bastard had done something stupid enough that he would need to be called in—despite knowing there’d be a victim, and for that, he felt selfish.

But as he looked over his shoulder at the two women, still vying for his attention, Alex promised he’d make up the hail Mary’s for it later.

“Send me the location,”he grunted into the phone, but there was a pause.“What is it Diego? Spit it out.”

A deep breath. One so heavy it sucked the air from Alex’s lungs, followed by hollow words.“ I’m so sorry. . . ”

Alex stared at his phone, confused.“What the hell are you talking about? Sorry for what?”

There was a tightness in his chest, like something heavy was sitting on it, making it hard for him to breathe. He tried to swallow it, to clear his lungs by clearing his throat, but it was useless. Alex knew exactly what would cause his best friend of twenty years to be so elusive.

Still, the impact of it, the sudden blow that loosened the tightness in his chest, was a massive one, and it caused him to crack, right down to his core.

Tears swelled in his eyes.“Just say it!”He shouted.

His sudden outburst caused the entire restaurant to go still, but he didn’t care. From their table, both Jessica and her friend gaped at him.

Finally, Diego said softly,“They’re gone.”

***

The dark, moonless night made the strobing lights of blue and red seem more haunting as he approached. They blocked the road, forcing Alex to drive alongside the narrow shoulder.

It was because of those lights, he could see menacing streaks of black on the asphalt. Evidence of where tires attempted to stop but couldn’t—not in time at least. They curled down the road a few feet before disappearing.

That’s where their car came to rest, on its side—both windows blown out. The entire front end was smashed in.

Alex didn’t see the other vehicle right away. Instead, his attention was drawn to the yellow sheet covering the passenger side window, where the outline of a body could be seen through the shattered glass.

The driver was sprawled onto the hood, their feet dangling over the mangled steering wheel, and Alex’s heart twisted in on itself. It was hard to tell them apart from here, although he could wager a guess. His mother hated driving, so that left his father behind the wheel— slumped over the wheel.

Alex had been to hundreds of crime scenes—had stood amongst carnage and calamity but not like this, never like this. Never had he seen it through the eyes of the families whose loved ones were covered under the same yellow blanket.

They were victims too.

Now, as he stood there, his breathing shallow and his body rigid—unsure of what to do, unsure if there was anything he could do, Alex found himself a victim too.

He’d never given it much thought, other than the usual empathy he felt whenever a call came in. In law enforcement, things don’t get easier—you just learn how to become more numb.

You know that at the end of every call, there’s a life involved—a family who lost a loved one, someone whose life was severely impacted. But by the time Alex gets involved, they’re considered cases, not people.

You can’t fit someone into a file. Who they are, what they like, and the people they might have influenced. Those are the variables that make a person who they are. And yet, those are the exact details that are stripped away once they become a victim.

It’s how men like Alex stop themselves from making it personal. They have to, otherwise they’d never solve anything.

Staring at the husk of twisted metal and broken glass wrapped around his parent’s lifeless bodies—broken inside, it was nothing but personal.

He didn’t realize he’d walked up to the scene—wasn’t in control of his body until he was face to face with Diego.

“You can’t go up there,”Diego insisted, pressing his large hands against Alex’s chest as if that would stop him.

“Like hell I can’t,”Alex argued. Diego was right in front of him, and yet Alex couldn’t see him at all. All he could focus on were those bright yellow sheets.

“Alex, it’s an active scene, and you even being here goes against every protocol we have set in place. I can’t let you go any further.”

Drinking in the world around him, Alex steadied himself against his best friend. He knew Diego was right, and he hated him for it.

Even as he stared at the crumpled metal that was once their car, now unrecognizable, part of him was still convinced there was something he could do.

“You don’t want to see them like that,”Diego said, his voice softening.

Again, he was right, and again, Alex hated him for it.

“Where’s the other driver?”It was more of a demand than a question as Alex scanned the hellish view, his eyes tracing over the red BMW a few yards away from where the impact occurred. It was dented and beat up, but nothing compared to the pretzel his parents were in.

Diego surveyed him cautiously, no doubt assessing his mental state. Alex knew he was trying to determine what he could tell him as an officer and what he wanted to say to him as his friend.

“Paramedics just loaded him up. He’s in rough shape, but he’ll live.”

“Good,”Alex bristled, and Diego knew what he meant.

“Assaulting him won’t bring them back.”

“You’re right, it won’t, but it will make me feel a hell of a lot better. Besides, it’s only assault if I leave him alive.”Alex realized what he said was foolish, but he didn’t care.

Diego leveled a warning look at him.

“I want the results of his blood test as soon as the lab has them,”Alex conceded.

Diego nodded but didn’t move, not until Alex finally took a step back.“I know this isn’t easy, but I need you to walk away right now and let me do my job,”he said.

Alex flinched as those words clanged through him. They were the exact words he’d found himself saying countless times to others who’d been insistent on staying. Hearing them from this side, they sounded hollow—light and weightless.

Alex turned on his heels and stalked back to his truck—midnight black and outlined against the night. His colleagues had nicknamed it“The Reaper.”

The title tasted sour in his mouth now.

The short walk seemed like an eternity, yet he kept his head up and his back straight so nobody could see how heavy he felt.

He didn’t wait for them to move his parents into the black nylon bags, where they would be taken from the scene directly to the medical examiner.

Alex knew witnessing that would be his undoing, and he wasn’t ready to give in.

He drove back to his apartment in silence, ignoring the calls and texts slowly trickling in.

Walking into the dark and unwelcoming quiet, he didn’t turn on the light or take off his boots.

Instead, he stood there, enveloped in the shadows and eerie silence that seemed so loud now, before allowing his knees to buckle.

In the moment, Alex thought he felt something. The smoothness of a hand pressed against his back as he shook and shuddered into the shadows blanketing him. But he knew better than to believe it was anything other than grief announcing its arrival.

Amongst the despair, the whirlwind of emotions he was freefalling through, he turned to it and whispered,“I guess it’s just you and me now.”