“Teresa Morris is alive. I have a photo of her in New Orleans.”
Henry stops mid-step, steers me into the doorway of a store, and orders, “Repeat that.”
I do.
“And you decided to . . . what?” His tone isn’t so light anymore.
We both know I fucked up. I’m not some kid who doesn’t know any better. I was wrong. We both know it. Explaining why I did it is another thing entirely. I trust Henry more than almost anyone, but that doesn’t make it easier to share my secrets. As I weigh what to tell him, I watch a man walk by in a top hat. His attention lingers on me.
“I’m acutely aware that there are awful people in the world, Henry. My job doesn’t do much to prove otherwise. I know there are good people, too. Like you. You’re a good man, but I know you are one of the exceptions.”
Henry presses his lips together as if he’s keeping words trapped in his mouth.
“You know I have trust issues,” I continue. “Hell, I suspect everyone who meets me knows that. Until the letter . . . until he sent that . . . I felt invincible. Now? He took that away. That sick bastard took away my sense of safety.” I hate it, but my voice cracks a little. The calm I am trying to pretend to feel slips a bit. “I don’t want to be a victim, Henry.”
For a minute, I think he’s going to ignore what I’m saying, but he lets out a breath and hugs me.
I’m stiff in his arms. “What are you doing?”
He laughs briefly. “That’s called a hug, Jules. Maybe you remember it? People hug when someone they care about is alive, and they’ve been worried. There are others reasons, of course . . . I could remind you of what used to follow it if you want.”
When he looks down at me, I squirm to get away. "No kissing!"
He smiles and releases me, before saying gently, “You’re not the only one who wants to stop that bastard or who can’t stand feeling helpless. It would gut me to lose you, Jules." He stares at me. "Taking off though? That’s an asshole move.”
“You’re not wrong.” I squirm under his gaze. “I’m sorry I worried you.”
Henry looks like he’d rather not say the next words. “And as much as I dislike Andrew . . . you ought to call him. He seems as worried as I was.”
At his words, a part of me wonders if I’m over-reacting about Andrew, if I’m jumping at shadows.
“Why don’t you like him?”
“Aside from the obvious?” Henry asks. His expression is about as friendly as a rabid possum.
I don’t reply.
“Something’s not right with him. He is hiding something, and I don’t like it. The fact that he sets off my alarms and sleeps with the woman I . . .” Henry stares at me again, as if he can will me to understand. He seems more like a cop again in that moment. “Just so you know, Jules, I didn’t like him before he took up with you.”
“Did he do something?”
Henry shakes his head. “We checked him out. A lot of things aren’t there. No real proof that he existed before five years ago, but he has an airtight alibi for several of the murders.” He pauses. His lips press together into a disapproving look. “You, Jules. You’re the alibi. I’m not sure what he’s hiding, but he’s not the Creeper.”
I text Andrew as Henry watches: “Just checking in. All fine here.”
“Do you trust him?”
"Maybe," I hedge. I want to say yes. I want to deny the things that have been making me uncomfortable lately. I don’t know what to think anymore. I don’t know what to think about a lot of things.
All I know is that with Henry at my side, I feel fine to answer when Andrew’s name flashes on my screen again a half hour later.
Henry glances my way as I say, “Hi, Andrew.”
“Did Revill find you?”
“He did.” I watch a tour group gathered in a cluster and cross the street to avoid winding through the crowd.
“Good. He was worried.” Andrew pauses as if he’s struggling to get the next words out. “I was too.”
I glance over at Henry. “I’m sorry. I just needed to get away.”
“Where are you?” Andrew lets out a breath in a heaving sigh, and I wonder at his mood. I expected impatience or anger, but he sounds desperate. “You didn’t really go to New York for a wedding. I know that. You’d have been home by now. I’ve met every flight from New York the last two days. You’re not at your house. Micky had no idea why I thought you were in New York, and Revill was looking for you and—”
“Why?”
“Because I love you, and you’re in danger.” His words are right, and for a moment, all I can think of is that he’s been my haven so often that there’s no reason for my mistrust right now. He’s a good man. Why isn’t that enough?
“No, why are you meeting flights?”
Andrew laughs, but in that way that tells me he’s frustrated that I don’t understand him. “I care about you, Jules. I want to be in your life, to be the one you turn to. A killer is contacting you. I want to keep you safe from him, protect you the way those other women weren’t protected. I don’t want him to ever touch you. We might not be what I want, but we are something.”
“I’m in New Orleans,” I say because I can’t answer the rest. I have never been the sort of person who wants to be half of a “we” or believes that there is anything remotely like a fairy tale or fated love. The closest I ever came was with Henry.
But I like my freedom, and he’s old school. Henry wants a wife, a family, a home. When I considered it, I was stopped by the thought of Darren, who demanded all of that from sister and it still wasn’t enough.
I need to be with a man I don’t need, who doesn’t need me. I thought Andrew was that, but right now, Andrew is not acting like the sort of man I want—even though I know he’s telling the truth about caring for me.
After a moment that’s just shy of too long, I tell him, “Teresa Morris is here somewhere. I’m not sure where, but she is.”
“So why did you hide that? Did you stop trusting me, Jules?”
“I don’t know. No,” I lie. “I just . . . I wanted to find her. It’s stupid, but all I could think about were the women I couldn’t help, the things he did, and I reacted.”
I look at Henry again while I’m talking, but he’s pretending not to listen to the awkward call I’m having. We stand on Royal Street and watch a crowd gathered to listen to a woman singing. She’s worth a pause. For a blink of a moment, I wish I was here with Henry, not for work but just to be.
“Are you coming home soon?” Andrew asks.
“I’ll let you know when I do. I’m staying here a couple more days.”
“And Revill?”
“He’s here,” I admit, not looking at Henry this time. It’s not an answer to the question Andrew asked, but I can’t unpack what he really wants to know: why is Henry here not him? I don’t know that I’m ready to answer that question for any of us, so I just add, “He found me, and he’s here.”
“I see.”
When Andrew doesn’t push for answers about Henry or volunteer answers about his secrets, I tell him goodbye and disconnect. I don’t want to be cold-hearted, but I can’t deal with him right now. What we have has worked for well over a year. We never had the “let’s be monogamous” talk or “someday we’ll get married” conversations. We simply were what we were, and it worked.