For You

  I’d taken Palmer and Tuesday on a tour years ago when I was home as they’d opened it to the public. I was curious as to where Colt worked even though I told myself I was doing it for Palmer who wanted to be like his Uncle Colt when he grew up.

  There were cells and lockdown in the basement. A vast open space on the first floor with files, a big counter facing the front door, some desks behind it, the conference room at the side, a few cubicles down the other side, offices at the back. In the back corner in a little, soundproof, windowed room was dispatch. Equipment down the middle of the room, two desks facing each other with an upright in between with knobs and dials. The dispatchers sat opposite each other with headphones on, like Connie McIntyre and Jo Frederick were doing now. The top floor was what I heard Colt refer to as the bullpen, but it was officially known as the Investigations Unit, where the few detectives had their desks and where the interrogation rooms were. They had lockers up there, a big bathroom with some showers and they had a supply room up there too where they kept guns and ammo, bulletproof vests, shit like that.

  Sully came with the agents and me to the conference room but Colt didn’t glance my way as he headed toward the stairs.

  I met the profilers and I spent some time repeating a lot of what I already told Colt. Their questions were more thorough and they went over stuff often, shit I’d already answered then I answered it again, and again. I tried to remain patient and managed it mainly because Doc had given me some sleeping pills and I’d slept from nine o’clock last night to just after eight this morning when Mom woke me in Jessie’s double bed (she’d spent the night on Jessie’s pull out couch) and told me that Colt had called and the FBI wanted me at the Station as soon as I could get there.

  I hadn’t had that much sleep in years; so long it felt like I lost days, not hours. Still, I got up, shook off the sleep in the shower and had a mild argument with Jessie who thought I should dress up for the FBI and carted half of her burgeoning closet into the guest room in order to facilitate me doing this when I thought it was best, as always, to be just plain me.

  I won.

  The FBI asked about shit they didn’t need to know, in my opinion, but I told them anyway. I didn’t want them to think I had anything to hide and I didn’t want them to think Colt did either. So I told them Colt and I were high school sweethearts, that he’d always been and still was like a member of the family. I didn’t tell them why I ended it with Colt but I did tell them all about Pete, leaving it at the fact that Pete had done the right thing by skipping town but making it clear he came to this decision with a little help from family and friends.

  On this point, I did not elaborate.

  I also went through all my travels, where I worked, how long I stayed, as best as I could. Fifteen years was a lot to remember. There were parts of my life that were burned on my brain. The first half of it and the last two years. The fifteen years I was travelling, not so much.

  I found it vaguely odd, in the spare moments I had to think about it during their questioning, that I’d lived those fifteen years in a kind of fog. I thought I’d been trying to rediscover me but it seemed I’d spent that time existing and not on a path of discovery at all.

  We were going over (again) the possible psychopath who’d been in my life for a long time, keeping tabs on me and working himself up to a murdering frenzy when I saw Colt coming down the stairs, his manner urgent, his eyes on the front door and my eyes followed his.

  Mom and Dad were walking in, Dad carrying something in a Ziploc bag, holding it between thumb and forefinger like it was putrid.

  Automatically I got up as my voice trailed off in mid-explanation that I had no freaking clue who was hacking away at people who’d shared my life.

  I didn’t notice all the agents and Sully’s heads turning to look out the windows mainly because I was walking to the closed conference room door.

  “Ms. Owens,” Warren called but I ignored him and walked right out.

  “What is it?” I asked across the room, Mom and Dad jumped and their heads swung to me.

  Colt, who had his back to me, turned and he was now holding the bag.

  The bag I saw would have been funny, say, in a TV show. The Ziploc bags I had at my house had big pink daises printed in a line across the front. But I knew the piece of paper wasn’t funny even if it was in a Ziploc bag with daisies on it. It was less funny because I knew it came in the mail at my house, that’s why it was in that bag. My parents had gone over to check my house; Mom told me they’d be doing it. And obviously they did.

  I made it to them and Colt said, “Feb, go back in with the agents.”

  “What is it?”

  “Feb –” Colt started but I reached out fast and snatched the daisy bag out of his hand.

  Then I retreated faster and turned my back to him.

  I saw the words I’m sorry I upset you about the dog… before Colt reached around me and snatched the bag right back.

  “I said, go back with the agents,” he demanded but I was looking at the note in his hand.

  “Puck,” I whispered to the note.

  I’d been around his dog. He’d had Puck for years and even though a lot of the time he made himself scarce when I came home for visits most of the times, since my family was the only family he had left and I came back for special occasions, he was around.

  So was Puck.

  When he wasn’t on duty Colt took that dog with him nearly everywhere.

  The last two years, Morrie and Dee then just Morrie would look after Puck when Colt went skiing in Colorado with Sully and Lorraine.

  I liked Puck so when Colt went on vacation, I went to visit Morrie so I could be around Puck.

  Puck was a great dog.

  And Morrie had told me about Puck dying last week, right in the bar. Obviously, Morrie didn’t know I liked Puck as much as I did because Morrie was shocked when I burst into tears right behind the bar, right for all to see before I realized what I was doing and walked back to the office to cry about Puck in belated private.

  The psycho had seen me too.

  “Does this have to do with the case?” I heard Warren ask.

  “I’m guessin’, yeah,” I heard Colt answer.

  “May I see?” Warren was being polite and I watched the note transfer hands.

  But all I could think was that I killed Colt’s dog. Lost women drinking away their lives in bars; loser assholes probably tearing through women’s lives in St. Louis; and now German shepherds who didn’t do any living thing harm just gave unconditional love and cost a bit of money to keep in food and shots – all of them gone, because of me.

  “I’m sorry, Colton, but we need to show this to Ms. Owens,” Warren said and I turned to him, my movement stilted, like my joints needed oiling. “This will be upsetting,” he informed me.

  I gave him a look that screamed, No kidding? but I didn’t speak. I just lifted my hand and took the note.

  Typed out, it said:

  I’m sorry I upset you about the dog. I didn’t mean to. I thought you’d be happy that he hurt like he made you hurt. His has to be the worst.

  It will be.

  For you.

  After I finished reading for a second I went blind, the words erased from the paper and I saw nothing.

  Then I turned to Agent Warren. “I need to make a statement on TV or something, tell him to stop. Tell him he’s not helping me. Tell him this is not making me happy.”

  One of the profilers, went by the name of Nowakowski, said, “If you’d be willing to do that, we’ll consider it, Ms. Owens, but right now we’re unsure we want to alert the media to this.”

  “Then I need to send a message somehow.” My voice was rising. “He thinks he’s making me happy. I need to tell him to stop.”

  “Ms. Owens –” Nowakowski started.

  “He’s watching me. I started crying when my brother told me Puck died… in the bar I started crying. He’s watching me. I need to be visible. What he’s doing to Angie
, Puck, I need to be visible. I need to show him he’s not helping me, he’s harming me.”

  The agents looked at each other and I felt a presence come close and I knew from experience it was my Dad.

  “I don’t need to be here.” My voice was rising as well as getting louder, sounding more hysterical. “I’m not helping here. I need to be out there.” I pointed to the doors, my arm slamming into something solid, that something was Colt’s chest, but I didn’t stop. “I need to be where he can see me! I need him to see –”

  “Girl, calm,” Dad said, his hand coming up to curl on my shoulder.

  I couldn’t be calm if someone injected me. I’d killed Colt’s dog.

  I turned and tipped my head back. Day three, third crying jag I grabbed Colt by the lapels of his jacket and got up on my toes, feeling the tears dropping from my eyes, instant rivers of salt. So much water, I had my eyes open but I couldn’t make him out, he was a total blur.

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so so sorry he hurt Puck. I’m so fucking –”

  Colt’s hand wrapped around the back of my neck, its steadiness and warmth coming as so much of a shock, I stopped speaking.

  “February, it’s okay,” Colt’s voice was quiet, just for me, only for me.

  I shook my head, the movement unnatural and wrong, me alive and moving while all things around me were getting butchered. The tears still uncontrolled, my hands twisted in his jacket and I shook it. “It isn’t.”

  And it wasn’t. None of it was.

  “Feb –” he began but I lost it.

  I lost it because it finally sunk in deep what my sick admirer considered his end game.

  And the thought was intolerable.

  Yanking Colt’s jacket with a vicious pull, I slammed my fists back into his chest and screeched, “He means to harm you!”

  Then I did it again and again, my repeated shrieks of those five words broken with sobs, my fists pummeling his chest, abusing his jacket, until his arms came around me, pulling me close, trapping my arms between our bodies.

  My head was still tilted back and Colt was still blurry and even imprisoned I was still hysterical. “He means to harm you!”

  “Do you have someone here who’s qualified to sedate her?” Agent Warren asked and I tried to turn, tear out of Colt’s arms to confront my new nemesis but Colt held me fast so just my neck twisted.

  “I can’t help if I’m sedated!” I shrieked.

  “February, you need to calm down,” Colt said firmly.

  My head twisted back and I looked at him still sightless and weeping. “I killed your dog.”

  “You didn’t have a thing to do with Puck dying.”

  “I killed your dog.”

  “She’s hysterical,” someone muttered.

  My neck twisted toward the direction of the sound and I screamed blindly, “You would be too if you killed someone’s dog!”

  Colt’s arms got so tight, my breath was forced out of my lungs and I heard him whisper the words, “Baby, stop it. You didn’t kill my dog.”

  Baby, stop it.

  Baby, stop it.

  Baby, stop it.

  The soft words bounced in my head, round and round, taking all my concentration. So much, I didn’t have enough to remain standing and I gave Colt my weight, dropped my head and rested it on my hands which were trapped against his chest.

  Baby, stop it, you don’t know what you’re saying.

  He’d said that years ago when I broke up with him.

  Baby, stop it, you know the way it is between you and me.

  He’d said that years ago too, when I told him he should act like a free agent when he went to Purdue and if he came back to me then we’d know it was meant to be. He’d refused. He’d said he didn’t want to be a free agent. He didn’t want anyone, not anyone, but me.

  Baby, stop it, Morrie gets it, your parents do too.

  He’d said that years and years and years ago, after the first time he kissed me and I’d freaked out because I’d wanted that kiss so badly, and it was everything I’d wanted it to be, and it promised everything I needed it to promise, but I’d worried Morrie, Mom and Dad would get mad.

  “I want him to be watching now,” I said to my hands, the tears still coming but they were no longer loud and neither was my voice. My words, like his, were meant only for Colt. “I want him to see what he’s doing to me.”

  Colt’s arms got tight again. “He won’t care, Feb, after all these years something started him on this path and he can’t go back now. But you’ve got to be stronger than this, you’ve got to help Sully and the FBI and you’ve got to stand strong to the end.” One of his arms came from around me and his hand went to the back of my neck, giving me a squeeze there and I tilted my head back to look at him, was able to get focused on him but still only blinking through tears. “And there’ll be an end, I promise, February, and it won’t end with the end of me. It will end with the end of what he’s doing.”

  I nodded, not because I believed, I was too scared to believe. I nodded because it was clear he believed.

  “I’m sorry about Puck,” I whispered and I knew it sounded stupid and like I hadn’t gotten myself together but his hand at my neck gave me another squeeze.

  “I know you are. I am too.”

  Colt knew it wasn’t stupid, he knew I was just saying I was sorry as anyone would and as I hadn’t at the time Puck died because I was avoiding him.

  “This is over, you should get another dog,” I advised.

  His mouth moved, I didn’t understand how but it wasn’t anger. It was something else, something attractive, almost mesmerizing.

  “I’ll consider it.”

  I looked from his mouth direct into his eyes. “Good.”

  “Ms. Owens, if we can continue,” Agent Warren said from behind me and Colt looked there before his gaze came back to me.

  “You good?” Colt asked me.

  No, I was not good. Any good left to me was stuck back in memories of the Glory Days or, sometimes, when Morrie would make me laugh or seeing how great his kids were turning out to be or biting into one of Meems’s muffins or seeing her look at Al, even after all these years and four kids, like she wanted to rip his clothes off or watching Jessie’s face get soft when Jimbo did something goofy like it was anything but goofy to Jessie.

  For me, I’d lived my life for awhile off other people being good.

  But for the first time in a long time I was sick of living in a fog most of the time and sick of feeling shit the rest of it and I wanted good back too, but I wanted it for me.

  “I’m good,” I lied.

  His hand and arm went away, I stood on my own two feet and I was concentrating so much on doing that, I didn’t move away directly. I just tested my steadiness for awhile before I tipped my head back, looked Colt in the eye, took a breath and then walked back to the conference room.

  Someone got me a fresh coffee and everyone resumed their places.

  “Now perhaps, Ms. Owens, in light of this new evidence,” Agent Nowakowski carefully placed the daisy bag on the table, his voice was gentle but probing, “we should go back over your relationship with Lieutenant Colton.”

  His eyes were on me and he was examining me like Colt did yesterday and I figured, considering he did what he did for a living, there was a lot he could see.

  Therefore, because this was important, not looking at Sully and hoping to God he’d keep his partner mouth shut even though I knew there was no way in hell he would, I said, “Alec Colton had been in my life since I was three to the time I was twenty. Not like my brother, something more. Everyone knew it, my family, our friends, everyone in town. Our breakup came as a surprise and still does to some, that’s how big it was. I broke up with him and it doesn’t matter why, I just did. He didn’t break up with me. This guy, whoever he is, is not going to care about that. I went off the rails after that and this guy, whoever he is, will know that like he knows everything else. And he’ll blame Ale… Colt.” I to
ok a sip of coffee, swallowed then took a deep breath and went on. “It wasn’t about high school sweethearts. Even when we were high school sweethearts, it was more. It was much more, more than many people have in their lives. Everyone knew that too. They also know, once I went off the rails, I never found my way back. Even after coming home. I suspect he wants to make Colt pay for that, even pay for taking me away when that wasn’t Colt’s fault either. So that’s it, that’s the story. There’s no words to explain how big it was, what Colt and I had, or how much it hurts when something that big in your life is swept away, or how empty that place is that he once filled, or how impossible it is to find something to fill it, but since everyone knew I drained myself empty, I suspect this guy knew too.” I sat back and finished, “That’s it.”

  Everyone was silent. I chanced a glance at Sully and he was looking at his knees.

  “Lieutenant Colton was a lucky man,” Agent Nowakowski said gently and my eyes moved to him. He was still studying me but now his eyes were as gentle as his voice.

  “Make no mistake, sir,” I replied, “Alec Colton was never lucky. He came into this world one of the most unlucky sons of bitches you’ve ever met and he’s worked his ass off for everything he’s ever had.”

  I had no clue how proud I sounded, nor how fierce, but out of the corner of my eye I saw Sully’s head jerk up but it was what Agent Nowakowski said next that kept my attention on him.

  “February, the mistake is yours if you think that’s true.”

  I heard a loud reverberating sound, like a tiny drop of moisture splashing against the bottom of a dry, cavernous pit.

  I almost looked around to find the source of the noise until I realized I was the only one who heard it because it was coming from inside of me.

  * * * * *

  Colt walked into J&J’s, it was early but he was off duty. The Feds and Sully were still working but after the scene in the Station his already minor “consultative capacity” became miniscule.

  There was another reason he escaped the Station and that was because Sully had told him probably a dozen times that day they needed to talk about “what Feb said in that room”.

  Seemed everyone wanted to discuss him and February, Susie, Jack, Morrie, Sully.