Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 93723 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 469(@200wpm)___ 375(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93723 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 469(@200wpm)___ 375(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
Detective Mosley: I’ve taken a bullet twice. I’ve been resuscitated once. Stitches more times than I can count. And none of that hurt like it did when I left you in the woods seventeen years ago. Just thought you should know.
I stare at his text and sip more water.
Another chime of a text.
Detective Mosley: Don’t blame your dad. He made a suggestion, but it was my choice.
Grabbing my foot, I stretch my quads while rereading his texts.
Detective Mosley: I should have said it, but it wouldn’t have changed what I did, so it felt cruel to say it.
I switch legs, feeling his words deeper than I want to feel them.
Detective Mosley: But I felt it, Josie. God … I felt it in my fucking soul.
“Teenager dropped off at the ER entrance. They didn’t even stop the car.” Dr. Cornwell waggles his eyebrows.
I shrug, feeling a little melancholy this morning which means I’ll take whatever he gives me. After he assigns two more cases to me, I don my PPE and head to the autopsy suite.
“Morning.” Detective Mosley smiles before masking as I brush past him, heading to the cold room.
The abandoned body is my first case this morning, and I assume, the reason Colten’s here.
“Morning,” several students say as I grab the microphone to dictate the external exam.
Ignoring Colten, I talk my way through the exam, occasionally quizzing the eager students.
“She’s good,” Colten murmurs to one of the students as I make my first cut.
The young woman nods several times. “She’s the best … but don’t tell Dr. Cornwell I said that.”
I grin without looking away from the decedent, thankful that I’m masked and behind a face shield.
Twenty minutes later, when I’m solidly in my zone, Colten breaks his silence, but not with a question about the decedent. “What are you whistling?”
“I think it’s ‘Knocking on Heaven’s Door,’” one of the young observers says.
“Do you always whistle?” Colten asks.
More than one of the students answers in unison, “Yes.”
Colten chuckles. “You used to whistle when we’d do our homework together.”
“You went to school with Dr. Watts?” The young woman who called me “the best” asks Colten.
“I did. She was my first love.”
My hands pause and Alicia lets out an audible gasp that only I can hear. I hope only I hear her.
“For real?” the young woman asks.
“The realest,” Colten says.
When I glance up at him, he winks.
“What happened?” she asks him.
“She became a brilliant doctor, and I joined the Marines.”
“Are you married? Dr. Watts is single.”
Who is this girl? Do I know her name? And how the hell does she know my marital status?
He chuckles.
Two hours later … I’ve got nothing, and that frustrates me to no end.
“Nothing?” Colten asks.
I shrug. “We need to wait for toxicology.”
“Did you miss something?”
I exit the suite to use the restroom. “Unlikely.”
“Did you get my texts?”
I pause at the locker room door. “Yes.” I push through it and use the restroom before donning new PPE. When I exit, my shadow awaits me.
“Have dinner with me tonight.”
I breeze past him. “No.”
He grabs the back of my gown where it’s tied and tugs it to stop me. I sigh. Colten’s never been so relentless—that was always my role. We have a silent standoff. I don’t turn toward him, and he doesn’t let me go. We’ve had more silent standoffs than I care to remember.
After a few seconds, he releases me, and I get back to work.
Sunday, I grab pho on my way home from errands and settle onto my sofa with the warm bowl of broth and noodles and a good book. While I slurp the last of it, there’s a tap at my window facing the front yard. I make my way toward the noise, contemplating grabbing my gun, but then I see a white piece of paper pressed against it with black Sharpie writing.
I’M SORRY
I shake my head and return to the kitchen.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Blowing out a long breath, I peek around the corner again.
I SHOULD
HAVE
SAID
IT
It takes time for his words to penetrate the scar tissue around my heart. Time for me to convince my feet to carry me to the front door. Time … Has seventeen years been enough time for an eternal grudge?
“Let me say it, Josie,” Colten says from the other side of the door. “Let me say it when I don’t have to walk away. Let me say it when it doesn’t have to be a consolation. A really shitty goodbye.”
If I open the door, my heart wins, and my pride and conscience will never fully recover.
“I was just too fucking stupid to figure it out. I was too angry at my dad. I was too persuaded by your dad. I was lost. I was weak. And you deserved more, Josie. So much more.”
I rest my palms and the side of my face on the door.