A Deep and Dark December(73)
“That’s it. Go on. Don’t stop now. What else did you see?”
“I saw you pull up her shirt, her bra, and remove a recording device.”
“What else?”
“I saw you kissing her, touching her.”
“Touching her how?”
“Don’t make me say it.”
“Is that the part you had to see?” he asked, his voice punishing. “Me f*cking her?”
“Stop it!”
“You wanted to know about her. You had to look. Don’t chicken out now. Ask me about it. Cast your judgment.”
“Oh, God. Is that what you want?”
“It’s too late to ask me what I want. This is all about what you want.”
*
He wanted her to reject him, he expected it, Erin realized. He stood there defiant and noble, ready to accept his punishment. Whatever penance he’d dealt himself wasn’t enough. He’d judged himself harshly and had come up lacking. He watched her with eyes full of despair. And suddenly she saw what she’d been missing.
He’d been right. She had manipulated the future by confiding in Graham about her visions. And her visions of Graham’s life were nothing more than scenes taken out of context. What had happened before and between mattered more than what she’d seen. She needed the whole picture. They both did.
She sank back down on the bed and patted the spot next to her. “Come, sit.”
He eyed her as though it was some kind of trick.
“Please.”
He sat, but not next to her, choosing instead the end of the bed and the furthest he could get away from her and still comply. That was something, she guessed.
“How did you and Patricia meet?”
“God. Why do you want to know about this? What’s the point?”
“It’s time we laid everything out because the past isn’t all I’ve seen. I’ve also seen the future. This doesn’t go away for you, for us. I care about you, Graham. And I think you care about me.”
She took his no-answer as confirmation.
“You were on the L.A.P.D. together,” she began. “Is that how you met?”
“Why don’t we start with what you don’t already know?”
She’d have to pull it from him an inch at a time. Fine. “Were you partners?”
“No. Not at first.”
*
Graham could still remember the first time he’d seen Patricia. Her long, dark hair had been tied back and tucked under her dress uniform cap. She’d taken the loss of her partner stoically, her back rigid as his casket was lowered into the ground. He couldn’t help but stare at her. She’d caught him looking and when their gazes had connected he’d felt like he’d been punched in the gut. All of the air whooshed out of him. From that moment, he’d made a point of putting himself in her path.
“Were you dating before you became partners?” Erin asked, breaking into long suppressed memories best forgotten.
“No. After.”
“Isn’t there some kind of rule against partners dating?”
“That rule didn’t apply to Patricia and me.”
“Why not?”
“I was under orders.”
“You were ordered to have an affair with your partner?”
“Yes. Sort of. No, not really. It just sort of happened and they wanted to use it. I let them.”
She shook her head, trying to follow what he was saying. “Your superiors?”
“No. Internal Affairs.”
“They thought Patricia was a dirty cop?”
“What makes you think it was her and not me?”
“Because I know you.”
He snorted and looked away. “Yeah, well…” She didn’t know him as well as she thought.
“Was she dirty?”
“I didn’t believe it at first. I agreed to what they wanted, thinking I could get her cleared. They suspected she was involved in her partner’s death. It was all a mistake. It had to be. She wouldn’t do what they were accusing her of. By the time I realized that it was much worse than they’d thought, we were…”
“In love?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know what we were.” And that was the truth. What they might have been had been stunted from the start. He’d poisoned the ground so that nothing could grow between them.
“You cared about her. I can see it.”
“Maybe.” Yes. God, yes.
“Did she know you were working for Internal Affairs?”
He nodded.
“You told her, didn’t you?”
He’d never forget the look on Patricia’s face when he’d confronted her, when he had to tell her that they’d been a lie. That he’d been using her, f*cking her, to get what he could for IAB. She’d slapped him. Screamed at him. He just stood there and took it all. His original motives didn’t matter anymore. He deserved everything she threw at him and more. While she’d been talking about a future together, marriage, he’d been collecting evidence against her. Every single day they were together.
“I tried to help her, tried to get her out of it. Tried to convince her we could have a life together. That deal in the apartment was supposed to have been the last of it. She promised. But I had a feeling she was up to something. It all went down too easily…at first.”