The road to Aquinnah can’t get any longer. In the rearview mirror, Morra’s headlights keep pace about a hundred yards back. We’re losing daylight. I press harder on the accelerator. Every second counts.
Dispatch radios in, “Backup units are twenty-two minutes out from location.”
“I’m eight minutes out. I’ll secure the perimeter and wait for backup before entering the structure.”
“Copy that, Detective.”
My grip tightens on the steering wheel. The photo of Blake and me back when we were partners in Miami burns a hole in my pocket.
I remember that day like it was yesterday, not eight years ago. We were both working our asses off to earn our detective shields that year. There were two openings in Domestic Violence, and we fit perfectly.
But on that day, Blake had just gotten off the phone with a connection in Homicide. There was one opening there, too, and Blake was jumping on it like a vulture. I mean, who wouldn’t? It’s Homicide. It’s almost always full, and when there’s an opening, it’s not given to someone who’s just out of the uniform. His connection, though, whispered that Blake could really get it.
I wasn’t happy about it, not because I wanted the position. I couldn’t care less about Homicide. Domestic Violence was where the real work needed to be done. I wasn’t psyched because I wasgoing to lose my partner. Blake Abel was my best friend. We shared a desk, a car, a backlog of reports and an equal share of secrets and dreams.
But he was happy, so he took me out to lunch to celebrate and told me, as a gift, the next incoming case he’d take solo.
It was thoughtful of him. I was buried in paperwork from a triple incident the night before. So when the call came in, female, twenty-six, multiple injuries, Blake responded solo as promised.
That’s how he met her. How we both met her. Reagan.
She didn’t see me, though. She had eyes for no one but him. Well, I did nothing to make her see me. I’d barely talked to her. He did all the talking. He did all the saving, and I stayed in the shadows watching as he stole her heart.
Reagan was his lucky charm. That’s what he called her. Days after he met her, he made detective, got the position in Homicide, and shortly after, they got engaged. Except that wasn’t entirely true. It was luck that put him in her path, yes, but how he got all those beautiful things had nothing to do with luck and everything to do with evil.
The thing is, Homicide is really hard to get into, and having one connection doesn’t guarantee getting the job. Most of the time, you need to sell your soul to get it, and that’s what Blake did. He used a vulnerable woman to do his dirty work for him and convinced her she was doing the right thing. He crossed all lines and boundaries, stomped on all ethics and planted evidence that framed Reagan’s husband for murder, and her false testimony sealed the deal.
A win-win situation in his book. He got an unsolved case closed and put away the bastard who beat the shit out of her for life. He got the job and the girl. Everyone was happy.
Except me.
I lost my partner, my friend, along with my respect for him. And I watched an innocent woman fall into a whirlwind ofdeceit. When I confronted him, he knew I wouldn’t do anything about it. I wouldn’t hurt my friend like that. I wouldn’t hurtherlike that.
My best friend knew me too well. He sensed my love for her when I wouldn’t even let myself believe it was real. How could it have been? Reagan was a case that wasn’t even mine, a woman I saw from a distance once or twice, a stranger who smiled at me in passing at the coffee shop.
Blake and I knew perfectly well if I opened my mouth I’d implicate her as much as I’d implicate him. He’d made sure of it. His lucky charm, his safety net, his golden goose.
He should have never used her like that. He didn’t love her. He never did. She was nothing but an opportunity. A means to an end. I begged him to, at least, leave her be. He got what he wanted. He didn’t need to use her anymore. Suffice it to say, I wasn’t invited to their engagement party.
I tried to warn Reagan about Blake, but he was always there. He wouldn’t let me anywhere near her. Come to think of it, he’d never introduced me to her as his friend or former partner, as if he’d been preparing for that day, as if he’d known it was coming.
What he didn’t see coming was the Aaron West situation. Blake wasn’t the only one who saw Reagan as prey. That motherfucking piece of shit West did, too, in a different way. A piece of ass he wanted to have just because he thought he could.
When shit hit the fan, and West was found dead in his car, foul play was on the table, and Blake was a suspect; there was a harassment complaint filed by West against Blake. The rumors about Reagan and West and the dead man’s switch message didn’t help.
The evidence didn’t stick, so Blake barely managed to dodge that bullet. It cost him everything he’d sold his soul for, though. Since he’d become a suspect, Internal Affairs came down hard,not just on him but on every case he’d touched. It turned out Reagan’s ex wasn’t the only one he’d rigged.
Blake didn’t kill West. I know that for a fact because I know who did. That message from the app, though… I firmly believe Blake sent it. A move straight out of a genius devil’s playbook.
His days on the force were numbered. He needed a fast exit, and his backup plan had always been Reagan. That message torched her reputation. She had no choice but to settle with the school to sweep it under the rug, just like Blake did with IA, but of course, his way of settlement involved stabbing a few people in the back and burning them in exchange for his out. That was how he’d gotten her to fall off the face of the earth with him and live at his mercy as Birdie Abel.
It’s funny how one action can seal your destiny into ruin. What would have happened if I hadn’t taken Blake up on his offer and had just gone with him to Reagan’s house? What if I’d been the one who showed up at her door? What if, when the time had come to ask if she’d had somewhere safe to go, and she’d said no, I’d been the one to say, “I’ll make sure you do?”
There hasn’t been a day when I’ve stopped asking myself that.
Until Blake called me out of the blue last year. He was wasted, rambling about how his wife wasn’t who he thought she was. How she was pulling away. How she looked at him sometimes like she was planning his murder.
Part of me wanted it to be true. I was glad Blake’s perfect life was falling apart. He didn’t deserve her. He didn’t deserve to be happy with her. And if he were dead, I could finally be with her.