Devil’s in the Details (33 page)

"Ah, I hit a nerve. The hit woman has a heart. There is someone, isn't there? A handsome beau back in France or England? A banker perhaps? I see you with a banker. They never pay mind to anything but money and how often they can get their dick wet. Or maybe it's a she? I am all about equality." Maura's tone changed, telling me that she thought she had found a chink in my armor. She must have seen my jaw twitch when she said it, and ran with it. "Ah it is a she! How very modern."

Maura sighed dramatically, "She will never love you like you want, or need to be loved. I’ve seen your type a thousand times. Hoping someone will love you." She grinned sloppily at me, "But, she will never love you. When she finds out the truth, she will despise your meager existence." I hated that she had hit a nerve and in some way, brought Alex into this moment. Brought Alex where I couldn't keep her safe, even if it was just in thoughts and words.

In reality she did, it felt like Alex was right around the corner. Waiting to see this side of me. It shook me to the core and I wavered for a millisecond and it forced me to look down at the floor. As I began to look up and tell the woman to shut the hell up, I caught that her right hand behind the wine bottle, her fingers curled around something.

Whispering a "Fuck." I launched up from the crouch I was in, grabbing her right wrist as she rushed to raise the .38 caliber revolver to shoot me. I then grabbed a thick handful of her red curly hair right at her temple, yanking back so hard I felt the hair rip out of the scalp as she screamed, small droplets of blood beginning to form from where I pulled harder.

As I slammed her wrist on the granite table she had her wine bottle on, forcing the gun out of her hand, I moved to her forearm, bending it until I felt the bone snap.

Maura screeched at me, "You filthy cunt! My people will find you and destroy everything you own! Everyone you love!"

Yanking her hair harder I dropped her broken arm, pushing my hood off so she could see my full face. I smirked at her, "I dare them to try. I am nothing but a ghost that doesn't exist." I twisted her hair harder, tearing out more or the thick red hair. "And you, my dear, are nothing but a ghost in a machine. A machine that wants you dead. Your desire and pleasure to avenge your parents through the pain of others dies with you right now. No one will care that you ever lived, they will only care that you are dead."

Using all the force I had, I slammed Maura's face into the edge of the tub. Smirking when the satisfying sound of her skull cracking against the hard porcelain overran the vocals of Rod Stewart.

Lifting her head, I saw that I had split her forehead open to the bone, blood poured out of the gash and mixed with the bathwater. Creating almost the same color of wine she had drank. Maura was still alive, and could survive the blow I gave her. I let out a slow breath, grabbing the sides of her jaw and face, and as I sucked in slower, steadier breath, I snapped the woman's neck. Killing her instantly.

Checking her pulse and satisfied there was none, I dragged her limp, wet body out of the tub. Ensuring that I spilled enough water on the floor to make it look like that as she went to grab her last few sips of wine, she overreached. Slipped out of the tub and tried to stop herself, breaking her arm and then slipping further on the water everywhere. Hitting her head on the edge of the tub before tumbling out and landing in a way that it twisted her neck until it snapped.

The coroner would label it an accident. That Maura O'Hara, had been drunk and had taken a terrible drunken spill. The town would gossip about it for a few months, the news media would pick it up for a day or two and the world would continue to spin madly on. The next maniac would take her place and Maura O'Hara would fade into a memory. A woman who had all this power, but couldn't handle her booze and a bubble bath.

And, yet, her words had sunk in a little too deep. Her words about love and if my truths were discovered, I would never be loved. I would be looked at as a monster and no better than the ones I murdered in the name of God and country.

Turning towards the door, I retraced my steps and exited through the same door I came in. After climbing over the wall and running back to the Land Rover, I clicked into Dani as I sat in the driver's seat. "It's done." I coughed, trying to clear out the tremble in my voice that appeared without my permission. "The cleaning crew will only have to go in with the police under protocol alpha to make sure only Maura's DNA is at the scene. I used gloves, but I need to start being extra careful these days."

I could hear Dani breathing slowly before she spoke, "I know Victoria. I saw and heard it all." She paused, the air between us growing thick.

She cleared her throat, before speaking again. "I can have a flight ready for you in a half hour if you want it. After the usual debrief and payment process, I can have you home by seven p.m. our time." I knew in the tone of her voice what she was telling me, without actually telling me.

Alex would be done with her last shift at the hospital by eight. I wondered for a second if Dani could see inside the Land Rover, see my hands tremble as I pulled off the black gloves and shoved them in my bag, if she saw my heart pounding when I reached for my cellphone and saw the handful of messages from Alex.

Lastly, I wondered if Dani could just read my mind and know how badly I needed to hear Alex's voice right in this exact moment, to confirm that I had someone who loved me. Loved me and was waiting for me. No matter what.

"Do it. Send me the directions to the second airport we use here. Have the cleaning crew take the car when I arrive, burn it clean." Dani confirmed my requests and updated the GPS the second I started the car. I tossed the cellphone onto the passenger seat, ignoring Alex's messages for now

Driving back to the isolated airfield we used, I struggled to prevent from crying. What I had done to Maura and what I had said to her was out of pure emotion. Not out of a sense of duty to my job, but emotion. Emotion because she had found the sliver in my walls and pushed too far in.

She had found that the killer in me had a heart and it could be used against me.

The 72 hours at the hospital went in the blink of an eye. The shifts at the hospital were nothing but a blur of bloody patients, gauze and bandages being thrown everywhere on top of orders being hollered over the sounds of life saving machines being rolled in and out of trauma bays.

For the start of a week, the hospital was busy. Whether it was the cherry blossom beer festival or something else in the cosmos, I barely had time to think, let alone sit down for more than a minute. Car accidents, bar fights, shootings, stabbings, etc. All of them came in in droves. At one point Stacy whispered she would give me her next two month’s paychecks if she could switch vacations. Cracking a morbid joke that if this was how a Monday and a Tuesday were going to be, heaven help us all when the weekend came.

I laughed, and told her no way in hell would I pass up a week off now. I would need at least a day and a half to catch up on sleep.

I worked through the doubles that quickly became triples, and last night, I opted out of actually driving home and crashed in an on call room. Curling up on a lumpy mattress and passing out the second my eyes closed.

I was released of my nursing duties after helping an intern stitch up a little girl who had fallen down the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, splitting her shin open. As I finished wrapping her leg, telling her a funny story about how I had fallen out of a tree, I felt my phone vibrate and knew it was Victoria telling me she was on her way home.

I walked out of the stuffy hospital with a smile. Feeling lighter having made a little girl smile, as well as getting closer to seeing the girl who made me smile. I had cleared out my thoughts the second the cool, clean air entered my lungs. Helping to clear out the thoughts I had over the last few nights as I struggled to put people back together and sit by them, hoping they would make it through the night for one reason or another. Taking one deep breath of the clean air, I grinned, instantly thinking of how the clean night air also made me think of Victoria.

Bustling out to my car I, dug out my cellphone from the bottom of my bag. Grinning wider when I saw that I had a couple messages from Victoria. Swiping open the phone I read the short one from when she landed in Rhode Island then read the two others talking about how boring reading the candidates files were and that she had to go to lunch with a few other faculty members.

There was one last one that had come in about an hour ago, telling me that she was at the airport and on her way home. There also was a voice mail waiting for me, I hit play zealously and pressed the phone to my ear. It suddenly hit me hard how much I had missed the woman already. Three days felt like a lifetime.

"Alex, hi. I should be landing a bit after nine. I wanted to know if it was okay to come over to your apartment when I landed." Victoria's voice sound off, strained and sad, making me worry, "I really want to see you. I miss you." She cleared her voice of the hidden tears I could hear in the low octaves of her tone, "I have to go, the plane is boarding. Message me if you don't want me to stop by, I know you'll be exhausted."

I heard hushed male voices in the background, ushering Victoria through the terminal, causing her to utter a hurried goodbye before hanging up. My fingers flew like lightning, typing out a quick, "See you at my place." message to her.

Dropping the phone back into my bag after hitting send, I checked my watch. It was half past eight at night. I had maybe an hour to get home, shower, clean up my mess of an apartment and maybe get started on a quick dinner or snack for the both of us.

Hopping into the old mini, I raced out of the parking structure. Weaving through the early evening traffic, I gripped tighter to the old steering wheel. There was something in Victoria's voice that had me thinking a million different things.

Maybe that detective had gotten to her, told her the half-truths I answered her questions with, and maybe she somehow found out that I had gotten a bit nosy in her den and saw the fingerprints in the dust on her medals. I bit the inside of my cheek as I drove faster, whatever it was that was bothering Victoria, I knew it wouldn't be good and that it would lead to a conversation that could overshadow the best two and half days of my life.

Standing in the center of my tiny and poor excuse of a kitchen, I scanned around the loft, checking that everything was in order. The dishes were washed and put away, my bed was actually made for once and I had shoved the laundry I ignored into a closet. My shitty apartment almost looked decent.

I knew Victoria had been here a million times over the last year and never ever cared that I was a bit messier than she was, but for some reason I wanted her to come to my apartment and feel calm within a warm, clean home. Whether or not it was just a one bedroom loft apartment, it was my home and I wanted her to feel at home here with me.

Bending down to peer into the greasy brown window of the oven, I saw the nachos I had thrown together melting nicely. I stood up and went to grab plates, when I heard the soft knock on the door. Victoria's knock. She would always knock twice in a row, pause and then knock once more.

I smiled at the simple things about her I had memorized, calling over my shoulder, "It's open."

Turning to door, I could not help but grin when I saw the blonde push through the door slowly, her head down as she had her hands full of a bottle of wine wrapped up in a brown paper bag. She looked beautiful to me, like looking at the first bloom of the cherry blossoms on the trees that lined the Mall. Something so beautiful it was almost ethereal and hard to believe it was real.

She was wearing a pair of jeans that were so big they almost hung off her hips, revealing the faint curvature of her hipbones with a plain faded black t-shirt with the Navy seal logo across her chest. Closing the door behind her, Victoria turned to look at me. A delicate smile drew her mouth into a curve the moment we made eye contact. She held up the brown bag, "I brought wine."

Nodding, I waved her over to the kitchen, noting that her tone was still as it was on the voice mail from earlier. "I made nachos."

She moved to the small counter top next to me, setting the bottle down. Silence quickly filled the air along with a heavy dose of tension. Something was seriously wrong and it made me nervous. I shifted slightly to lean on my side facing her, "You look tired, Victoria."

She nodded slowly, her arms folded against her chest with her head down. I could see her thinking as if she was writing her thoughts down on paper in front of me, her eyes were cloudy at the edges of the irises. I took in a breath and moved to get the food ready, "They should be done in a minute, and then you can fill me in on all the boring details of your trip."