Page 37 of Welcome Home
My bottom lip trembles and he lowers his head further, keeping his weight off me as he nestles into me, an odd rumble in his chest. I don’t know when I fall asleep, but it’s wrapped in him, splayed open by him, and I would have it no other way.
16
Coming Undone
DetectiveRappert
My pulse thuds in my ears, loud enough to drown out all the other sounds. I can see Captain Lancer’s beat red face moving a mile a minute in my peripheral, his fists clenched between bouts of gesturing wildly at me. The room. The assholes from internal investigations, maybe.
I can’t hear them, not any better than I could hear someone trying to recite Hamilton from underwater with plugs in my ears, but they are talking about me. About the end of my career. One I dedicated my life to. God, what will Avery say?
We’ll figure it out, baby. We always do.
She’ll be the wonderful kind person she is, even though she’s just as convinced as the smooth brains surrounding me that I’m in need ofindefinite suspension without pay.
My fists clench, gripping the hem of my dress shirt. Sure, it’s not like I can’t see their point. I mean, the video playing on loop in front of me is pretty damn straightforward.Iam walking through the precinct after hours, shuffling through files, looking into the Neilson case out in the open. Despite being told weeks ago, I was off it. Being warned to let it go. The precinct being inundated with volley after volley of complaints against me by the Neilson’s high-powered attorneys. I should’ve let it go. I shouldn’t have called in a favor with the crime lab. I really… really should have let it go, but…
I didn’t, although I hadn’t been loud about it. My skin prickles as the sight of Oliver Neilson’s face comes unbidden in my memory, split down the middle. That woman was terrified in his arms. I was terrified, too. I have been since; I haven’t slept either. Not without that picture assaulting my mind's eye. Before I almost believed Captain Lancer when he said I was losing it… for a moment I let myself slip back into a spiral.
Did I come back in?
Was it me?
Am I losing my damn mind?
Until he showed me the security footage.
No, the DNA doesn’t lie; it was a match. They found his blood all over that knife… all over the back of her car. The back garden when we searched it. That garden with the dying flowers and upturned dirt. We nearly had enough for an arrest until he came back.
I thought…at least she’d gutted him within an inch of his life, but no…
That thing… isn’t Oliver.
“Cora Nel-“
“Enough! You are harassing a poor woman whose husband flaked out and humiliated her for months!”
“If you would just listen, sir, I sent off all the DNA we’d-“
“Yes! The DNA you stole from evidence that the state crime lab has no record of ever running or receiving. You’re lucky their attorney held off filing a lawsuit.” His spit flies around the room with each word punctuating how screwed I am. The internal investigation guys behind me are playing the strong and silent card.
“I had a friend run it as a favor.”
“And the name of this friend?” One of the men behind me finally speaks up.
I just shake my head. They knew when they asked, I wouldn’t give up the name.
My fear and quiet resolve quickly fade as I stare at thatthing… in the video. I’m not crazy, I’m fucking pissed, and I know exactly where to get the answers I need.
17
Setback
Cora
Vosz stares at me intently through Oliver’s eyes again. I would be lying to say I wasn’t disappointed to not have been greeted by milky white ones and a hulking alien form when I woke this morning. The more and more we exist together in this now… thoroughly wrecked space, the less I see the skin he’s wearing despite the years of torment it inflicted on me. I see him.
Underneath it all.
