“If I’d said I was only an ordinary policeman and sometimes people had shot at me and I’d had to shoot back, what would you think then? Would you think I was a professional killer?”
I realized if he’d said that, I would have been upset but I wouldn’t have thought of him as a murderer the way I was now. I shook my head.
“I could have never told you, Anabelle, but I wanted to be honest. I didn’t want any secrets between us. I know this is a shock and I know I’ve risked everything by telling you. Do you understand?”
I think I nodded as a few more tears made their way down my cheek, and I dropped my face to stare down at my hands in my lap. Round and round in my head all I could think of was,He’s a killer!A murderer! A hit man!“I’m sorry. I can see this isn’t what you want to hear.” His voice sounded as if he were breaking in two. “I’m … I’m honestly sorry because I think we could have been good together.”
I didn’t answer because I was sorting through things in my head. Trying to grasp what he was saying. Trying to see things from the point of view of a policeman, not a contract killer. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew he’d stood but I was still locked inside my head, my thoughts a chaotic jumble as I sorted through them, grasping at the sense of it all.
“Don’t get up. I’ll see myself out. I’m sorry. I wish we could have tried for something together. You would be so easy to love, hell, I already love you.”
I only half-listened as he walked from the room. But suddenly, I heard the front door open and loudly close.