CHAPTER 12
“What in the hell is that?” Maddie said.
The chief and Nick launched out of their respective chairs and hovered over me like a couple of eagles protecting their nest. By the time I had the bottle all the way out of the box, no less than six pairs of eyeballs were riveted on the liquid substance within the glass and what floated around inside of it: a severed finger.
“What is this, some kind of sick joke?” Nick said.
The chief held his hand out to me and folded his fingers back toward himself.
“Lemme see that,” he said.
I handed it over and then tipped the box on its side and peered in again. A slip of pink paper was taped flat to the bottom and on it, a message:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY SLOANE MONROE
I HOPE YOU LIKE IT
YOURS ALWAYS, SINNERMAN
“There’s a note,” I said.
“Don’t touch it,” the chief said. He flung his arms to the side like he was an umpire who’d just declared the player that slid into home plate safe. “No one touch a thing.”
The chief reached over and confiscated the box from me, and with great care he lowered the jar back into the depths of its cardboard home.
“Madison,” the chief said.
“I’m way ahead of you,” Maddie said. “We can take this to my lab right now.”
She stood up and walked over to me and gave me a hug.
“I’m sorry to leave you like this on your birthday sweetie.”
“With all that’s happened, this trumps my big day,” I said. “Keep me posted on what you find out.”
She leaned in until she was a couple inches away from my ear.
“You’ll be the first to know,” she whispered.
Moll returned with tray full of entrees and a perplexed look on her face.
“Where in the world is everyone going?” she said.
“I’m sorry,” I said, “but it looks like we’re going to need these to go.”
CHAPTER 13
Nick wore a hole in my living room carpet while he paced from one side of the room to the other, part in a debate with himself and another part using his hands to converse with the air in front of him. I rested on the couch and tried to make the most of my entree to go.
“This has gotten out of hand,” he said, after a few minutes. “That psycho has made it personal, and I don’t like it.”
The reality was it had been personal for a long time now, and we both knew it. Sinnerman had just upped the ante, and for whatever reason, all bets were on me.
“If they can lift a print and find out who this guy is, it will all have been worth it,” I said.
I already knew full well the box and its contents would be clean. Sinnerman was too smart for that. But at the moment, my main goal was to pacify Nick by whatever means necessary.
“How can you sit there and eat right now after what just happened?” He shook his head. “You know what? I think you wanted this.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I said.
“Do you even care that this guy could be watching your every move? Honestly, Sloane. I’ve had it with all this. I’m done. From now on, you’re going to listen to me, and that starts right now. I want you to promise me you won’t have anything else to do with this case.”
Inside my head, something snapped. All my life I’d been an overachiever, the organized girl with the OCD who tried her best no matter what. I was no quitter. Grandpa instilled that in me from a young age. Monroes kept going and never gave up. It was our creed. How could he expect me not to go after the one person who took someone away from me? While I sat and listened to the endless load of crap that spewed forth from Nick’s lips, I couldn’t take it any longer. It was like something woke up inside me that had been asleep since the day we moved in together. A light came on and I knew what I needed to do. The time had come to flip the switch on our relationship.
“Nick, I’ve had some time to think,” I said. “Maybe we need a break from each other.”
“What are you talking about?”
“For the last several months I’ve had to sit here and listen to you tell me what to do and what not to do, and I can’t do it anymore,” I said.
“What are you saying?”
“I need some time to myself,” I said.
“Fine, I’ll sleep on the couch for a while. I did it last night; I don’t see why I can’t do it again.”
I shook my head.
“I need you to go,” I said.
“Are you kidding me—you’re kicking me out?”
“It’s not like you don’t have a place to go. You haven’t sold your place in town yet. You’ll be fine. And I need this right now.”
“You know what; I don’t think you mean a word of it. You’re not in your right mind because of all that’s happened these past few days. You just need some time to get back to yourself again.”
“I’m thinking clearer now than I have in a while.”
He snatched one of my empty glass canisters from the kitchen counter and heaved it across the room. It smashed against the window, and the glass shattered. In an instant Taye Diggs was through the front door and by my side.
“What’s going on here?” Taye said.
“Nothing that concerns you,” Nick said. “I’ve got it under control. Get out.”
Taye looked at me.
“You alright?”
“She’s fine,” Nick said. “You can go now.”
“After you,” Taye said.
“You hard of hearing or something? I told you to go,” Nick said.
Taye didn’t budge, and neither did Nick. It was like a bar scene from an old Western without the pistols.
“Please leave,” I said.
“You heard the lady,” Nick said. “Get out.”
I looked at Nick.
“I didn’t mean him, I meant you,” I said.
Nick gave me a look that sent a shockwave of chills through my body. It was a side of him I’d never seen before; it felt ice cold, and I didn’t like it.
“Unbelievable,” Nick said. “I’m here trying to protect you from a complete whack job that all of the sudden has decided to track your every move, and this is what I get for it?”
“It’s not about that,” I said.
“Oh really, what then?”
“It’s all of it,” I said. “Things haven’t been good between us for a while now. I don’t know how you can’t see that too.”
He threw both hands out to the side.
“Fine, if that’s what you want, I’m out of here.” He turned to Taye Diggs and said, “Have fun with her. She’s more than you bargained for, but at least I don’t have to deal with it anymore.”
“Have some respect, Calhoun,” Taye said.
Nick stuck his middle finger out at Taye and then walked into the bedroom and returned a few minutes later with an armful of clothes in his hands. He headed straight for the door and never looked back.
My cell phone rang. It was Maddie.
“Hey,” she said, “how are you doing?”
“I just kicked Nick to the curb,” I said.
“For good?”
“I don’t know yet. What did you find out about that finger?” I said.
“For starters, although I thought so at first, it didn’t belong to the woman who was killed the other day.”