Karma Patrol (17 page)

His partner was right. He was half-assing the most important case the department had seen in over a year. He needed to pull himself together before his lack of focus got someone killed.

“Luke?” His partner’s hand waving in front of his face got his attention, and Luke resisted the urge to jerk backward. “You’ll never guess what that call was about.”

Luke waited for Aaron to tell him, then sighed. “You want me to guess anyway, don’t you?”

“Not if you’re going to suck all the fun out of it,” Aaron snickered. “Do you remember those rape-homicides we worked about six months ago? The ones from the apartments—”

“With the dead dogs,” Luke finished for him. The killer had chosen victims who owned large dogs, and had killed both the humans and their pets. “Yeah, I remember. It takes a special kind of scumbag to kill an animal.”

“It looks like that’s one less scumbag we have to worry about.”

“What happened?”

“There was a hit and run this afternoon, car versus pedestrian, and the pedestrian didn’t make it. Traffic ran his prints to ID him, and they were a match to the prints we lifted at those apartments.” Aaron tossed his phone back onto his desk, looking smug. “It sounds like karma finally caught up to the dog killer.”

Luke choked at his partner’s choice of words. He’d had all the karma he could take today. He wondered if Jade had been involved—

“Wait.” His mind was suddenly reeling, Jade’s words from earlier echoing in his head. “It was a hit and run? A fatal hit and run?”

If you want to double check my ability to predict karmic consequences, I’d suggest you check with the Midtown North traffic cops at the end of the day.

“That’s what Valente said.”

See if that guy gets killed in a hit and run.

“She was right,” he breathed, and Aaron frowned.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Luke shook his head. “It’s nothing. I just—Jade—”

“Go check on your girl,” his partner told him, sounding amused. “Come back when you’re ready to work.”

It went against everything he believed in to walk out in the middle of an investigation, but he was a realist. He knew he would be useless until he managed to sort out his personal issues.

“Thanks,” Luke said finally, grabbing his jacket off the back of his chair as he stood. “If the captain asks—”

“You’re running down a lead,” Aaron finished for him. “I’ll cover for you. Go.”

Jade had flatly refused to watch any shows about dating, couples, or weddings, so they’d settled on a marathon of cooking shows instead. Halfway through an episode of a show dedicated entirely to cupcakes, Jade straightened abruptly, jostling Shannon’s arm as she got to her feet.

“What’s wrong?” Shannon asked, glancing away from the television. “Struck by a sudden craving for delicious cupcakes?”

“No,” Jade replied, then paused as she considered the tray of chocolate raspberry cupcakes the on-screen chef was pulling out of the oven. “I mean, yes, but that’s not why I got up.”

Shannon waited patiently, but after several seconds of silence she raised her eyebrows at her friend. “Well?”

“Well, what?” Jade asked, and Shannon laughed.

“Well, why did you get up, then?”

“Oh. I…” Jade hesitated. “I’m not sure. I just really feel like I need to go downstairs.”

A smile tugged at the corners of Shannon’s lips, and she patted the seat next to her.

“Sit back down,” she prompted when Jade didn’t move.

“But I should—”

“No, you shouldn’t. Stop blindly reacting and think for a minute, Jade. How often do you feel a random and irresistible impulse to do something?”

“Are we talking about eating cupcakes or going downstairs? Because I have no willpower around cupcakes.”

“Apparently, you don’t have much willpower around your soulmate bond either,” Shannon informed her, and Jade’s eyes widened.

“He’s downstairs, isn’t he?” Jade turned toward the door, breathless with anticipation, but let out a squeak of surprise when Shannon caught her arm and turned her back around. “What are you doing?”

“What are
you
doing?” Shannon replied dryly. “Don’t you remember what happened the last time you talked to him?”

“But that was different. We weren’t—he wasn’t—”

“He still isn’t. Not yet.”

“But he’s here. He came back.”

“Yes, he did. I suspect he was inspired to come back by an irritated soulmate bond using liberal amounts of pain to motivate him.”

“I always thought you were a romantic,” Jade said, momentarily distracted by Shannon’s cavalier attitude, and Shannon shrugged.

“You’re the romantic, sweetie. I love a good happy ending, but I’m a little more practical about it than you are. I’ve been doing this for a long time, and I promise you that you’re going to have your happy ending, but if you go down there right now, all you’re going to do is drag this unhappiness out even further.”

“So what do I do?”

“You sit down and finish learning how to make those amazing cupcakes while I go talk to him.”

“But—”

“But you want him, desperately, and you’re terrified and furious at the idea that I’m going to get to talk to him instead of you.” Shannon stood, putting both hands on her friend’s shoulders. “Get a grip, Jade. Grab on to some of that iron willpower you use in your own work and use it to fight the urges from the bond. Give me the time that you said you would so I can smooth this out and get both of you on the right path. Okay?”

“Okay,” Jade agreed, still hesitant. “Are you sure I can’t even—”

“I’m sure.” Shannon grabbed her coat, pointing firmly at the couch. “Sit down. Stay here. Watch television. Trust me.”

“Trust you,” Jade echoed as Shannon disappeared through the front door of the apartment. “Sure. Easy.”

With a herculean effort, she managed to keep herself from following Shannon downstairs. She tried to watch the end of the show, but found herself unable to focus, and the televised baker’s words fell on deaf ears.

It was probably for the best anyway, she reflected as she tuned him out in favor of returning her attention to the half-melted pint of ice cream on the coffee table. She’d never been much of a cook.

Luke sat on the sidewalk at the edge of the alley that ran behind Jade’s building, his back against the brick wall and his head in his hands. He’d tried to go inside, rationalizing that even if she was angry with him for walking out earlier, she would still be grateful for his protection, but he couldn’t force his legs to take him any closer than where he currently sat.

“Rough day, Luke?”

He looked up at the voice, sighing as he recognized her from their interaction when he’d taken Jade in for questioning. She was the woman Jade had mentioned this morning, the one who’d told Jade they were soulmates, which made her directly responsible for his current misery.

“Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse. You don’t have any other lives you should be out ruining?”

“That’s charming. I see why Jade likes you.”

His heart jumped at the mention of her name, a knot forming in the center of his chest. Shannon nodded as though he’d just confirmed something she’d already suspected, and without any concern for her ankle-length skirt, she sat down next to him on the cement.

“She’s not perfect, you know.” Shannon tilted her head, giving him an assessing look. “She’s pushy and controlling. She always wants things to be her way, and she has a pathological inability to compromise. She’s superficial and incredibly judgmental and she can’t cook worth a damn. Seriously; she can’t even make toast without burning it.”

“Don’t talk about her like that,” he said sharply, the knot in his chest getting progressively tighter as she criticized Jade.

“Why not? She’s my best friend, Luke. I know her better than you do.”

“I don’t care how well you know her. I don’t even care if what you’re saying is true. I don’t want you talking about my—”

He stopped abruptly and she nodded.

“Your soulmate,” she supplied for him. “You can say the word, Luke. It doesn’t mean you’re professing your undying love for her.”

“I don’t even believe in this crap,” he said, not sure whether he was trying to convince Shannon or himself.

“You don’t have to believe in the sun, either,” she replied with a trace of amusement. “It’s going to rise and set regardless of what you want. Soulmates exist, and Jade is yours, and that’s that. You can try to fight it if it makes you feel better. You’ve been trying to fight it all day, haven’t you? It’s not so hard when you’re away from her, except you can’t stop thinking about her. It’s like a constant ache in the center of your chest, gnawing at you. Whenever anyone mentions her—and they
will
mention her, because the universe doesn’t appreciate you screwing up its plan for the two of you to be together and it’s going to take every opportunity to hit you over the head with it—the ache gets worse. If they say something negative about her, it turns into an actual physical pain.”

Without conscious thought, his hand moved to his chest, covering the place behind his sternum that throbbed with the pain of Shannon’s words.

“It lives right there,” she added, nodding to the spot where his hand rested. “Your soulmate bond. It’s like your very own little piece of destiny. It’s been rooted inside your soul your entire life, waiting for her to come along. Its only purpose is to make sure that the two of you fulfill your destiny as a soulmate pair. When you met at that crime scene, it woke up, and it’s been trying to push you toward her ever since. It’s never going to stop, so you might as well start listening to it.”

“Don’t do this to me,” he begged, and hated himself for it. “You don’t know me. You don’t know what I’ve been through. I can’t—”

“You’re wrong,” Shannon said quietly, leaning back against the wall as she held his gaze. “I’m your Cupid, Luke. I have access to your file. I know everything about you.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do,” she contradicted. “I know about your childhood. I know about your father, about the things he did to you. I know what happened to you in the Army. I know about Leanne—”

“Stop,” he demanded, his chest tightening with a pain that had nothing to do with the soulmate bond. “Just stop.”

“I know the two of you were friends,” she continued, relentless. “I know she fell in love with you, but you never returned her feelings. You thought it was because you couldn’t love anyone, because there was something wrong with you, but it wasn’t, Luke. It wasn’t your fault that you didn’t love her back, and it wasn’t your fault that—”

“That’s enough!”

“That she got killed,” Shannon finished. “It had nothing to do with you.”

They sat in silence for a long moment.

“It was my fault,” he said finally, his voice flat.

“It was a random break-in, Luke. It wasn’t your fault.”

“She wouldn’t have been there if it wasn’t for me.” The fight drained out of him abruptly, and he slumped back against the wall as the words escaped. “We’d just gotten back from our deployment, and we were talking about whether or not we wanted to re-up, and then all of a sudden she’s telling me she’s in love with me. I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything. She got mad and she left. I guess she decided to spend the night at a hotel off base. I didn’t know anything was wrong until my commanding officer called me into his office the next morning.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Shannon repeated, her voice soft. “There wasn’t anything you could have done differently.”

“I could’ve loved her. Leanne was—she was a great girl. A good woman. She was cute and funny and smart. If I’d been able to feel the same way about her as she did about me, she never would’ve been in that hotel. She’d still be alive.”

“You couldn’t have loved her,” Shannon corrected him, and he gave her a baffled look.

“You just said—”

“Luke, I know you in a way that very few people in your life will ever know you, so I need you to listen to what I’m telling you and believe it. You are capable of love. You are capable of astonishing, breathtaking, awe-inspiring love that will change your entire world and make you feel whole and happy and content for the first time in your life. The catch is that you’re only going to feel that way about one woman, ever.”