My hands are shaking in my lap as I wait to hear Dan’s fate.
Our fate.
The fate of our life.
The fate of my life.
“Excuse me, Mrs. Fisher?” I look up to see a man in a nice suit. “I’m Detective Connors.”
I stare straight ahead. I don’t want to talk to anyone. I just want to know. I need to know.
“Ma’am, I know that this has been a hard night, but I’d like to ask you a few questions.” I can feel him staring at me so I nod my head to let him know I heard him. “Did you see what happened?” I shake my head. “Where were you when the incident happened?”
Incident? “My husband was shot in our home. That’s more than a fucking incident.” I shock myself with what I say to him. Right now I don’t care though. “I was sleeping upstairs.”
He sits down next to me. “I’m sorry for what happened, I know it’s overwhelming. If we are going to catch this guy we need to try to move as quickly as possible. We are assuming it was a robbery due to the fact that your husband’s wallet and car were taken.”
“His car was taken?” I saw it when I was upstairs. How did they take it that quickly?
“Yes, ma’am. Does your husband have any enemies?”
I shake my head. Dan got along with everyone. “Do you know where he was tonight?”
“He had a dinner meeting with some of his associates and then they went out for drinks.” I look over at him and he seems like he is waiting for me to continue. “I woke up when I heard a loud bang. I didn’t think anything of it until I heard a second. I walked over to the window and saw Dan’s car so I assumed that he was home and just knocked something over. When I went downstairs I couldn’t find him so I tried the garage and found him.”
I feel like I am reading something out of a book, not retelling the nightmare I have just experienced. I haven’t cried yet either. I feel so numb. My fingers pinch the skin on the underside of my wrist. I need to feel something, even if it’s pain. The numbness is haunting me.
“Mrs. Fisher?” I look up to him. “Was Mr. Fisher conscious when you found him?” I shake my head no. “Okay, I think that will be it for now. I advise you not to go home until you have had your locks changed since the attacker has your husband’s keys.”
My eyes shoot up to him. “He has keys to my house?”
The detective nods. “Unfortunately, I can give you the number of a locksmith if you need one.” I shake my head once again. “Okay, then. I’ll be in touch.” He gets up and leaves the waiting room.
I’m alone again. Maybe that’s for the best. I’m not in any shape to be around anyone. I just need to know how he is. If he’s okay.
I look at the clock and I have been sitting here for two hours.
Two hours of not knowing.
Two hours of uncertainty.
Two hours of pain.
“Fisher?” I look up knowing I should stand and walk over to the doctor but not having the energy to, or maybe I’m too scared to. He walks over and sits next to me. “Mrs. Fisher, I’m Dr. Stevens. We had your husband in surgery for the last couple of hours but his wounds were too extensive. Sorry, Mrs. Fisher, but he didn’t make it.”
I stare straight ahead, everything he is saying doesn’t register with me. Dan is gone. Taken away by God knows who. I lost him. I’m alone again. The doctor is still talking but I can’t focus on his words.
“If you need anything before you leave let the nurses know”
As he walks away all I can do is watch. That’s it. Sorry we couldn’t save your husband. Have a nice day. What do I do? Where can I go? I can’t go home. I don’t want to call Lacey or anyone else. I just want to be alone. I stand, head for the exit, and wave down a cab driving by. I ask him to take me to the closest hotel before realizing that I don’t have my wallet on me.
“Can you stop by my house first? I need my purse.” He mumbles a reply. I stare at the streetlights the entire ride.
“Hey, lady, we’re here!”
His yelling jolts me out of my catatonic state. I look up to my house to see it covered in police tape. As I walk up to the front door, it’s thankfully unlocked because there is no way I could go through the garage. I grab my purse which was on the table by the door and walk back out to the cab. Without a word the driver pulls away from the house.
Everything is a blur the drive to the hotel, checking in, getting to my room—nothing resonates. I sit on the bed and for the first time a tear falls from my eye, that one tear opens up the floodgates and within a few seconds they are falling one after another. I’m screaming so hard that my throat is raw, my eyes burn from the pain that is leaking out of me.
That’s when I hear it a bang. Just like before. Bang. Bang. Bang. I scream again as it brings back memories of the night, of finding Dan shot and bloody.
“Jules!” I hear a voice. It must be my imagination. No one knows where I am. “Jules! Open the door!”
Brian? It can’t be. I use the bed as leverage to stand up and stumble over toward the door. When I open the door, Brian is standing there soaked from the rain that I didn’t hear start. A crash of thunder sounds and I jump. Brian walks past me but I don’t shut the door.
“You need to go. You can’t be here.”
“I need to be here.” He says it with such finality that I almost say okay.
“No, you don’t. You need to leave. I need to be alone.”
His hands grip the side of my face. “That is the last thing that you need right now, Jules. You need someone and I am here for you.”
“You think I want you right now? You are the goddamn last person I want to see right now! My husband was just fucking killed!”
“Yea, well maybe you’re fucking better without him!” Before I know what I’m doing, I smack Brian across the face. My hand instantly burns from the impact. Brian’s face hardens and his expression becomes filled with rage.
That’s when what I did set in. I hit him.
His hands push my chest so hard that I fly back and fall onto the bed. “Fuck you, Jules! You want to fucking be alone then have it your way!”
The door slams so hard it vibrates the walls of the small room. I can’t believe I did that. Physical contact has always been Brian’s trigger. With his upbringing, any kind of negative touch would set him off. I knew that. He confided in me about it.
I bring my knees up to my chest and wrap my arms around them. The tears start to fall at a steady pace again. I rock back and forth on the bed while I think about the shamble of a life I have left. I lost my husband. I lost Brian, again.
Everything is gone.
Chapter Thirteen
Brian
It’s been a month since I’ve seen Jules, and I’m still fucking livid about the way things happened. There is a lot of shit that I can take, a lot of shit that I can deal with, but her fucking putting her hands on me like that isn’t one of them. The thing is that she fucking knew that too. She had to know that what she did would set me off. Granted, what I said was really shitty and she had been through something traumatic but that’s a line that she should have known not to cross. As much as I don’t want to, I’ve been looking for her, seeing if she is around town, or even outside of her house but it’s like she vanished into thin air. I get that she loved the dickhead, but that doesn’t mean that I need to be sorry that he isn’t around anymore.
The guys have been giving me constant shit about my mood lately. Ryan has told me a dozen times to stop being a dickhead and go apologize to Jules, but hell will freeze over before that shit happens. Hunter has been trying to get me to bang anything with two legs and big tits. Mason has basically just told me to stop whining like a little bitch. Jake really doesn’t seem to care. He has plenty of his own shit that he doesn’t want to share so he doesn’t press the issue for me to deal with mine.
I don’t want to sleep with another random woman. Honestly, the fact that you don’t know where half of these sluts have been is a big issue for me. All I want is to drink enough to forget about her just for a fucking minute. My body is so tightly wound lately that the littlest shit is setting me off. I don’t know how to handle it anymore other than just drowning out my sorrows.