Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 54836 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 274(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 183(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54836 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 274(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 183(@300wpm)
We joked a lot about needing to move to a bigger house just to accept all the police dog fails. Honestly, we were only half-joking about that.
Ever since the day I brought Matilda home, I had fallen head-over-heels in love with dogs.
And, yes, as a mom with small kids at home, I absolutely enjoyed the security that larger, intimidating-looking dogs provided.
“It was… work,” he said, evasively. “You didn’t see the news?” he asked.
“Oh, no. I try not to watch it when our walking sponge is awake,” I told him. “Something bad happened?” I asked.
“Domestic gone really bad,” he said, exhaling hard, and shaking his head.
I knew that since the beginning, domestic calls or cases were the ones that tended to get to Wells the most. The helplessness of it all, because the abuser almost always got his victim to come back, and he was powerless to do anything about it, knowing that it was likely only going to get worse. Until, sometimes, this type of thing happened.
I knew, to an extent, Wells couldn’t talk about the details of the case. What’s more, he didn’t want to talk about the case.
He wanted to come home and let all that ugly slip away.
He wanted to get lost in the good.
In the love.
In our family.
I moved around the island, wrapping my arms around him, smiling a bit at the way my belly was getting in the way these days.
Wells’s lips pressed down on the top of my head as his arms went around me.
“Glad to be home,” he said.
We broke apart at the unmistakable sound of feet barreling through the house.
Then there he was.
The little manifestation of our love.
With… jam on his face? When I hadn’t given him anything even remotely jam-like all day. That was… troubling.
“Oh, geez,” Wells said, shaking his head as the policeman’s son came running into the kitchen… wearing a fireman’s uniform.
I’d laughed when our boy had picked it out, wondering if the whole cop/firefighter rivalry thing was true.
Judging by his father’s reaction, it was.
“If it makes you feel better, he also insisted on getting a zookeeper’s uniform,” I told him as he lifted our boy up high in the air, getting squeals out of him.
I got to stand back and watch as all the stress seemed to melt from Wells’s body. As if she sensed it too, our daughter kicked, making me press my hand there.
I couldn’t wait to meet her.
But I was glad for every moment left of being a family of three.
“How about pizza for dinner?” Wells asked, having noted that I hadn’t even started making it yet.
I’d had every intention of making some sort of pasta dish, since our son was in his pasta phase. Mac & cheese, red sauce, Alfredo. Anything, so long as pasta was involved.
“Baked ziti pizza?” I asked, looking at our boy who was trying to put his firefighter helmet on Hector. Who, despite failing out of his K9 training, seemed to possess the same distaste of all things firefighter.
“Sounds good. But I won’t hate it when he phases into his meat and potatoes part of life,” Wells said, beaming over at me. “Are we going out or staying in?” he asked.
I popped my lips, then nodded my chin toward our son. Who had stripped out of his pants.
“Home it is,” he said, laughing.
It was later, after we put our son to sleep, when we curled up on the couch to find something to watch, knowing we were perilously close to not having any free time with a newborn on the way, and if we did have it, we would want to catch up on sleep, so we were going to enjoy some TV while we still could.
Wells’s arm was around my shoulders, and the other resting gently on my belly as I clicked through the channels.
Then, right there on the TV, was a preview of a new documentary coming in a few weeks.
About The Serial Sadist.
The true crime accounts of what had happened all kind of fizzled out within a year of his death. Then, well, nothing seemed to happen.
But it seemed like they’d finally gotten around to the story.
“We knew it would happen eventually,” Wells said, but his hand was rubbing my shoulders.
That was true.
And, as a consumer of true crime content, I couldn’t be mad about it.
“I hope they do Madison and Ashley justice,” I said as we watched the trailer. “And make him out to be the small, ugly man he really was.”
I watched as my own face flashed across the screen, something that I had never gotten used to; whether it was about my attacks or my books, it always felt strange.
“I’m dubious about it since they didn’t ask to speak to me,” Wells said.
He wouldn’t have talked to them anyway. Most active-duty cops had the same mentality. It was usually only the retired ones who ended up talking about their old cases, living their old glory days.