Two drinks are given to him on a drink tray.
His third stop for the night is at a home, about eight blocks away from his own. He parks in the brightly illuminated driveway and takes the drinks and bags of food with him to the door. With full hands, he opts for using his boot to knock.
To avoid being spotted, I pull into the dark house across from him and turn off my lights while using the mirrors to watch.
Long blonde hair. That’s all I see.
Her arms wrap around him, and she buries her face into the crook of his neck. I snap pictures through my window as he, despite his full hands, returns the embrace.
A very familiar embrace from the looks of it.
I shut the window and turn around. By the time I check, they had disappeared into the house. No other lights are turned on, so I wait about five minutes before I pull out of the driveway to get myself some dinner and use the restroom. I’m going to see if there’s a fourth stop, but my gut’s telling me there isn’t.
When I return to the street about thirty minutes later, I park my car between all the other vehicles stationed for the night and watch through the window. The curtain is pulled back, and the blinds are up, revealing the connection between both people just sitting on a couch, much too close to each other.
Just before midnight, he comes out and grabs the bags, including his duffle bag.
He’s staying the night. It doesn’t surprise me.
But there’s nothing else I need here.
12
Delivery
Eleanor Devero
The fucking door.
Oh, my God. Shut up! I groan as I trip over the nearly empty bottle of tequila on the floor and the crumpled covers. I haven’t had a drink in eleven months, and my body is reminding me why liquor is the root of evil.
I think I’m going to puke.
Ding. Dong.
“Who is it?” I stumble my way to the door as the high-pitched dinging reverberates in my head and slashes my ears. “What time is it?” I glance through the small glass window of the door to find a husky woman standing on my front step, wearing a padded black vest and a pink flannel shirt underneath it.
I swing the door open. “What?”
Her gaze immediately drops to my legs—my bare legs. I need to start sleeping in pants. At least I have on underwear, I think to myself as I rest my head on the door. “Date night with tequila,” I offer an excuse, even though she doesn’t deserve one.
She eyes me curiously, a coy smirk on her face as she shifts her gait and hooks her finger through the waistband of her loose-fitting jeans. “Lucky tequila,” she mumbles under her breath and widens her smile.
I restrain from tugging on the hem of my T-shirt, even though my fingers itch for a modicum of modesty. “It’s too early in the morning to get hit on.”
She’s momentarily surprised by my reaction, but quickly recovers, and narrows her eyes at me. A half-hearted smile, unbalanced to her right, is currently plastered on her face, while her eyes look over my shoulder, as if she expected company.
Sorry, lady. My fiancé didn’t come home last night.
“Sorry,” she offers unapologetically.
I wave a hand in the air. “Don’t worry about it.” Though, by the frequent glances inside my house, she’s no doubt edging for an invitation. It continues to amaze me how much information our body gives away without us knowing. I straighten up, blocking her view. “Can I help you?”
Her lustful thoughts clear, and her brain focuses back on her mission. There has to be a reason for her standing on my steps. She reaches into her back pocket. “Does Tyler Dalton live here?”
Tyler. My heart pounds out of my chest. The name sobers me up a bit, and I scan up and down the street for anything suspicious. “Who’s asking?”
From her large back pocket, she pulls out a small wrapped box and hands it to me. The card she retrieves from her other pocket has “Happy Birthday, Tyler” written on the front.
“What day is it?” I ask the stranger.
She furrows her brows but answers, “Eleventh.”
My due date. In the right world, Tyler would have been two months old today. “Who gave this to you?” I swallow the thick ball at the bottom of my throat—the one blocking my ability to breathe and think properly.
“I don’t know, lady. It’s a messenger service.”
“A messenger service?” I echo back.
The Bullet Man found me.
“Money-Life? Accepted the gig, at like three, after the club,” she adds and heads down the steps, wanting to get away. She knows something, or sees something, or… “I got to go. I have another delivery to pick up.”
Before she can escape my eyesight, I unwrap the gift to pull out a black velvet box—a ring box, except inside there’s a bullet with something written on it.
Oh, my God. The blood rushes through my veins so fast, my fingers tremble. Like a gong and mallet, every glance at the bullet strikes my heart, percussing through my insides and blooming within me. My pulse echoes, almost painfully. By the time I shut and lock the door, my ears ache at the steady onslaught of sound.
My muscles give out.
If not for the door at my back, I would’ve collapsed from my weakness. Instead, I slide down to the floor, cradling the small box between my shivering hands.
I hesitate to touch the bullet.
The cop in me wants to get gloves and advise the authorities, but she’s easily trumped by the mother—the grieving mother. The mother who has spent her time obsessing over killing the person on this bullet.
My gun. Kace had put my gun away with fear I’d do something to myself, but I know the combination. It’s always the same combination: our supposed wedding date. With no strength, I crawl myself back into the living room, toward the desk, and extend the last drawer, retrieving the black metal box.
I unlock it and make sure my firearm is still there and loaded.
In my hands, I hold the name of the person who murdered my son, and on the ground beside me is the weapon I will shoot the killer with.
I take one long, deep breath and pluck the bullet from its velvet holding, tilting it horizontally to read the two words written on there.
Your Precinct.
“What?” I shout and kick the metal box with my bare foot. Numbness dulls the pain radiating through my big toe. “What the fuck is this?” My foot throbs, but the rage in my veins throbs harder.
The card! I frantically look around the living room for the card before finding my strength and rushing toward the door. There, on the ground where I had fallen, is the white envelope with Tyler’s name on it.
I swoop it up and tear it open. No words had been written, but printed out copies of photographs had been tucked inside.
Broken. Betrayal. Bombed in the heart.
Tears fall from my eyes, splotching the cardstock, and for a minute, my world crumples again—explodes. It shatters in front of me, but it’s quickly replaced with the murderous rage inside me.
It trickles out of my pores and glides over my skin, taking control of my feet, hands, mouth, nose, and eyes—all my senses preen on one thing and one thing only: answers.
And I knew exactly where to start, thanks to the Bullet Man.