“I want to tell you. It isn’t really a big deal, but she gets under my skin so damn easily. She was asking how soon I would have the business ready for a sale. I mean, seriously? I know she isn’t going to run it, and I’m not interested, but I’m the one here working. It sounds like… like she wants to get rid of anything associated with him. I know it wasn’t exactly an ideal marriage, but he was still her husband, for God's sake.”
“I’m sorry, Nick. That sucks.”
Nick spent the next twenty minutes venting and asking my opinion on how to deal with a few things. This wasn’t us planning a date. It wasn’t sex. It was us being partners. And it felt really fucking good.
Chapter Nineteen
Finally, on a Thursday afternoon in early November, while I was reviewing reports on a case that had cleared up quickly, I heard Grayson yell my name. “Rixon. Rixon! Over here.”
I frowned at being summoned by the junior officer in the team but pushed my chair back and walked over to his desk, keeping the standard “can’t catch the gay from here” distance.
He was jumping from document to document too quickly for me to understand what he was doing. I stepped forward and put my hand on his shoulder. “Stop. Take a breath. What the hell are you trying to show me?”
He glanced at my hand and shrugged his shoulders as he moved away but started talking. “The Shorts. I’m looking at the interviews. Nothing jumped out in any of them, but I have read them dozens of times now. Look at all the highlighted sections. Look at the timelines. Some of the changes in Aimee were not only when she broke up with that boy—they also coincide with Uncle Jeff losing his job at the warehouse. The difference is when he started working nights at the Tourks’ place, he had a lot more unsupervised time with Aimee and Bailey.”
Frown deepening, I scrolled down through the documents and pointed at a few sections. “The changes in behaviour also coincide with him taking up photography. And look at this. They didn’t disappear a few days after that incident at school. I mean, they did, but look—they also disappeared the day after the family dinner, where Uncle Jeff gave Bailey those photos in frames. Have a look at that one. The scar on the knee. That’s Uncle Jeff’s knee that Bailey is sitting on. They aren’t just family photos. They are reminders, threats. I think he was starting to look at Bailey the way he had been with Aimee. I think that’s what the photos told her.”
“Fuck.”
Every single thing he showed me could have a reasonable and innocent explanation. But I knew we were right. “Let’s go see Ian.”
Six months we had been running in circles, and one scar on a knee in a family photo brought everything into focus. I took one of the other detectives with me to speak to Stacey. Ian and Brooke went to see Jeff.
As soon as we laid out what we thought, Stacey’s demeanour changed immediately from concerned sister and aunty to sneering and angry. Telling her our thoughts on Bailey tipped her over the edge. “Bullshit. Jeff isn’t a faggot. Aimee has been begging for it since she hit puberty. She was always in a fucking bikini, swinging her boobs in his face. Fucking slut had the nerve to try to tell me that Jeff came on to her. I told her, I did. Looking like a slut with her tits out, she can’t fucking blame men for havin’ a look. Jesus. She always thought she was so fucking perfect. Like he was ever going to leave me just ‘cos her legs were open more hours than 7-Eleven. Don’t go saying that sick shit about Jeff. He wouldn’t touch a boy. He ain’t one of them.”
I felt sick. My stomach was rolling. When I tell people what I do for a job, they always say, “You must see some terrible things.” But thankfully, days like today were actually few and far between. A lot of days were routine. Paperwork based on baseless complaints. Most days, even in this job, were still pretty good.
Today wasn’t one of those days. Getting Stacey’s statement took hours, going back over each thing she said. When we finished, I was surprised to see Ian and Grayson back at their desks already. I approached Ian’s office and updated him on the sections he hadn’t heard. I asked how things had gone, and Ian grunted. “You weren’t wrong about Grayson. The guy is a fucking dick, but he is good, so I guess that makes him our fucking dick.”
“Not the sort of fucking dick I am usually a fan of, but as long as he gets the job done, huh?”
It was early morning before we left the station for the day, after talking about our plan going forward. Jeff was being held overnight, and someone had to talk to the Shorts tomorrow. And we still had to find the kids. Assuming Aimee had never intended to harm herself or Bailey, they had still been on their own for a long time.
I emailed Nick to let him know we made progress, rather than texting or calling him and waking him. Even though I couldn’t discuss details, I needed to talk to him. Just to connect with him. I had barely closed my laptop when my phone rang. I glanced at the clock: after two in the morning. “Nick?”
“Baby, are you okay?”
“I am now. God, it’s good to hear your voice.” Suddenly, the progress on the Short case wasn’t what I wanted to talk about. “I talked to Ant the other week, and I have been doing some thinking. Well, a lot of thinking actually.”
“And?” His voice was wary.
“I’m scared of losing you.”
“Ky—”
I cut him off before he could continue. “That’s on me, not you. I have spent so many years thinking other people would judge me if they knew my past that I was judging myself way harsher than anyone else would have. You are the first person I have ever wanted more with, that I have ever been invested in, and it scares the crap out of me to lose it. But I need to stop jumping to conclusions and overreacting every time I misunderstand something.”
I paused to collect my thoughts, and Nick didn’t jump in. I loved that about him. He knew if I need to get things off my chest, that sometimes I need some breathing room.
“I trust you, Nick. I do. But trusting myself to be enough is still a work in progress, and I guess… I guess I’m asking you to be patient with me while I work on it.”
I heard him exhale. “You amaze me, Ky. I wish you could see yourself how the rest of us see you. How Ant sees you, how Tim sees you, how I see you. We all know about your past, but we know you are so much greater. You deserve so much more than letting that define how you see yourself. But Ky, I—look, I… I know I can be a dick sometimes. I can be insensitive, and I need to know you will still say something if I upset you. It would kill me if you were there thinking you had to toughen up or some other macho bullshit. It kills me when I hurt you, even if I didn’t mean to. Ky, I...” He cut off what he was going to say and cleared his throat. “Ky, I think it’s getting late, and you need to get some sleep, okay?”
I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me. “Tell me what’s going on with you for a minute. I like listening to you.”
So he did.
I don’t know how long we talked before I fell asleep. My phone was on the pillow next to me when I woke in the morning.
Later that day, I got a text from Nick.
Date night on Friday via Facetime. 7 PM. Cook your lasagne. A bottle of Merlot. And have your toys ready. We are going to have fun.