Page 50 of Misadventures in Blue
I don’t rip out the IV after all.
I watch her leave. I watch her leave in my army shirt with her hair still tangled from our impromptu fuck. I watch her leave, and I can still taste her on my lips.
And for the first time since I was shot, I feel like I might die.
Chapter Fifteen
Cat
I have a meeting with the FBI, and it takes over nine hours.
Nine hours to detail all the evidence against Pisani, sift through her statement, and apply it to what we know. She used her mother’s car as a way to deflect visibility, and she robbed all those other doctors’ offices as a way to keep suspicion on the stolen televisions and not on the decommissioned medical equipment in her own place of work. The FBI is tracking down a boyfriend they think helped her with the physical aspects of the burglary, and they’re also attempting to track down the cobalt itself.
Why a Vassar grad became a criminal is still a question the FBI will have to answer, although I think I saw a hint of the reason in Pisani’s statement.
I couldn’t find a job after graduation, not a single one. And then I finally found this office job, and it barely paid any of my bills, and it was so boring I wanted to die…
Very smart and very bored. Add in some money problems and a healthy dose of anger, and that’s all it takes.
By the time the meeting is over, I feel ready for an entire bottle of wine. Maybe even two.
It’s the first time since I transferred into investigations in the weeks after Frazer’s death that I’ve missed being a patrol officer. Missed being spared the interminable meetings, missed the clean-burning energy of working hard and then burning off steam at a bar or in someone’s bed after.
Of course, right now there’s only one bed I want to be in, and I made damn sure I’d never be invited back.
It was for his own good, I tell myself for the millionth time since I broke Jace’s heart a week ago. He wasn’t listening to reason, he wasn’t letting me do this for him, so I had to make him let me go. I had to find the things I knew would make him flinch and make him doubt. I had to hurt him so he’d accept that we had to end.
One day he’ll thank me. One day he’ll realize that I was the one mature and sacrificing enough to protect his chance at having a full life.
That it killed me in the process is inconsequential. What’s important is that he has his future back, full of all the opportunities and new women he deserves. Full of time for him to meet his real soul mate and do things at the pace they’re supposed to be done.
What’s important is that I won’t have to wait up at night for him anymore. I won’t ever have to watch someone hand a folded flag to his mother. I won’t have to miss him so much it feels like the muscles of my heart are tearing themselves in half.
Except.
That’s exactly how I feel right now.
And when the FBI finally has everything they need from me to formally assume responsibility for the case, I go home so my heart can tear itself open in peace. I curl up in one of Jace’s shirts, smelling the achingly familiar scent of tea tree oil and leather.
It was for his own good.
But I think I may have shattered any hope of good being a part of my own life now, and even though it was worth it, I still have to mourn the cost.
I gave him his future…
And now mine is empty without him.
Captain Kim calls me a few days later to tell me that both Jace and I will receive commendations from the chief at a special ceremony next week. He also tells me that since the case is no longer ours, Jace will return to Russo’s squad whenever he gets off medical leave.
I should be happy about this—I know I should—but I hang up the phone and stare at my suddenly-too-big desk and feel like I’ve been hit in the chest.
He’ll probably be relieved that we’ll be back to never seeing each other at work, but I’m not. I can’t be. I’ve only just now realized it, but I was counting on having at least this with him. At least the perfunctory hellos and goodbyes and accidental brushes of elbows and feet as we jostled for space at the same desk.
It’s selfish to want it. I broke a good man’s heart, and I don’t get to have him close to me anymore. The sooner he moves on, the better it is for him, but I can’t stop the ache of grief that comes with it all. The gnaw of bitter loss. I just want him near me, even if I can’t have him, even if it’s better for him to meet other women and go live his life… The idea of not seeing those flashing gray eyes and that stern mouth, of not hearing that deep, rough voice…
Ah, fuck, it hurts.
It hurts so much I don’t know how I’ll survive it.
