When in doubt, p.13
When in Doubt, page 13
“I’m sorry you feel that way, Mr. Caswell,” Simone said. “I take great pride in my property and its upkeep and have no intention of selling, but I’d gladly relinquish the dubious honor of representing our residents to anyone who’d like to take it on. You perhaps?”
The committee chairman motioned for silence and wiped sweat from his forehead with a shaking hand. “Calm down. I think everybody recognizes the various issues involved here. Please take a copy of the survey before you leave. Fill it out and return it to the planning office before our next meeting. Thank you all for coming. We’re adjourned.”
The attendees collected surveys and then filed out more slowly than usual. Finally, Simone emerged at the rear of the procession, stared straight ahead, and passed Jeri without acknowledging her. Maybe she was preoccupied about the meeting or about her assault. Jeri debated letting her leave. She’d told Simone to stay away, and violated her own rule once, but had to know if she was okay.
“Simone?” Jeri called.
Simone kept walking.
“Wait up.” Jeri ran alongside. “Didn’t you hear me calling?”
Simone finally looked at her. “Oh my God. What happened to your face?” She almost brushed Jeri’s cheek but drew back before making contact. “You and Megan didn’t—”
“God no. A stupid accident.” Jeri wiped absently at her swollen cheek. “Are you okay? I heard about the assault last night.”
“I’m fine. More shaken than hurt and obviously distracted. I’d just left Bonnie across the street, and he came out of nowhere and grabbed me from behind.”
“Just thinking about someone manhandling you makes me feel sick. I’ll find out who did this. I promise.” She studied the smooth skin of Simone’s face and neck for bruises. “Are you sure you’re okay? I heard he got rough with you.”
“Jeri, I wasn’t hurt. Really. I’m more concerned about the recent increase in crime and false reports to code enforcement. Someone is trying to make me sell the Madison to clear the way for this lucrative high-rise. The developer is probably involved, but I don’t know who the muscle is behind the intimidation.”
“We’ll get to the bottom of it. Trust me.” Jeri stepped closer, hesitated, and then reached out. “May I hug you?”
Simone smiled and nodded. “Is it for me or you?”
“I’m guessing both.” Jeri drew Simone into her arms for the first time and almost groaned at how right they felt together. Simone was soft where Jeri was hard, rounded where Jeri was flat, and petite against Jeri’s broad frame. Perfect. She’d wanted to hold Simone since the day they met, but the timing had never been right. And it definitely wasn’t now, standing in a public place surrounded by strangers. Her life was still a chaotic mess of past, present, and future problems all related to the shooting. She memorized the press of Simone’s body and the mixture of peace and arousal she felt. “Thank you.” She hoped Simone couldn’t see how much she wanted and needed her.
Chapter Sixteen
The moment they touched, Simone realized she shouldn’t have hugged Jeri. They joined so perfectly that no space existed between them. Jeri’s full, moist lips were inches from hers, and Simone saw the hungry look in her eyes and the nervous flutter of her eyelashes. Her gaze exhumed desires Simone shouldn’t be having and made her want more.
She forced herself to release Jeri, stepped back, and scanned her faded jeans, plaid flannel shirt, and old Army jacket. More rebel than cop, but the vulnerable look on her face melted Simone. Who wouldn’t be attracted to her? It was perfectly natural and perfectly innocent. “Thanks for your concern…and the hug.”
“Okay. I mean, thank you too.” Jeri shuffled her feet nervously. “Guess I’ll go. You’d probably like to be alone…without me hovering.”
The perfect out. Simone should take it. She’d resolved to keep her distance from Jeri until the redevelopment meetings were over and then there would be no reason for them to see each other again until…until what? The shooting case was over? Jeri wanted to see her socially? She tried not to look at Jeri, but she was weak. She blurted, “Not really.”
Jeri grinned. “How about a walk? Sometimes the empty streets help clear the mind.”
Simone was exhausted, but Jeri looked like she needed to talk. “A stroll would be nice.”
They fell into a slow, relaxed cadence along Elm Street through the center of town, stopping to window shop at things neither was interested in.
“This is my zone, when I’m working. I used to get out and walk until I got a call,” Jeri said wistfully. She surveyed the street ahead of them, her eyes constantly in motion.
“You don’t do it anymore?” The question caused the slightest hesitation in Jeri’s step. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to.”
Jeri cocked her head to one side and gave Simone a sideways glance. “How do you do that?”
“Do what?” Simone stopped.
“Tell so much about a person from the simplest thing? You did it with the guy at the first meeting and then again just now with me. You detect emotions from the slightest facial tic or body movement. It’s feels, I don’t know, intimate somehow.”
Practicing her craft was intimate, which was one of the reasons she loved it. Psychology gave her permission to delve into and examine emotions without experiencing them herself. It was safe and immensely rewarding. “Years of practice I guess. It’s part of the job, like yours.”
Jeri nodded. “And you’re right. I don’t walk here anymore. It’s too quiet, which reminds me I can’t remember. Enough about me. Why were you late tonight, if you can say?”
Simone accepted Jeri’s need to redirect the conversation. “I’m concerned about a young man recently home from active military duty who’s suffering with PTSD. He has all the classic symptoms, and his family is very worried. We’ve done some work together, but he’s regressing. I’m really afraid for him.” Jeri pushed her hands into her coat pockets, and Simone feared the topic was too close to the bone. They walked in silence for several minutes.
“What kind of PTSD symptoms?”
“Insomnia, nightmares, restlessness, excessive drinking, and hypervigilance. Generally reckless behavior.”
Jeri’s pace slowed, and Simone adjusted to stay in step.
“Are those pretty common symptoms? I mean are they the same for everyone?”
Simone deliberately kept her answers generic, hoping Jeri would find something useful. “Symptoms vary. A person could also suffer fatigue, headaches, short temper, anxiety or panic attacks, depression, lowered sex drive or promiscuity, guilt, fear, anger, denial. The list goes on.”
“Are all those reactions considered normal?” Jeri kept looking straight ahead.
“They’re not unusual. The trauma is often so overwhelming to the senses that the mind and body find manageable ways to deal with it or avoid it.”
Jeri stopped in front of a small art gallery and stared at the display. Simone sensed her emotional turmoil and respected her need for silence. When Jeri wiped a tear from the corner of her eye, Simone wanted to reach out so badly she ached, but instead pretended she hadn’t seen the reflection in the shop glass.
After a few seconds, Jeri started walking again at a more leisurely pace. “Are these people totally broken?”
The agony in Jeri’s voice caught her off guard. Jeri seemed to search Simone’s face for answers she could understand and apply to herself, but she wasn’t ready for the entire truth. Simone reached for something nonthreatening to relieve her discomfort.
“They’re not broken at all, just in need of a little assistance.” She slid her arm through Jeri’s as they walked, inched closer, and lowered her voice as if the decreased volume would soften her words. “Once they acknowledge they need help, they’re halfway home.”
“You must be an excellent therapist because I feel your compassion, but I’d never want that particular look directed at me.”
“Which look?”
“Pity. It would destroy me if someone I loved looked at me that way. I had enough pity after my parents…I wondered if anyone would ever see me as whole again.”
“Sometimes looks don’t accurately portray what the sender intended. Besides, I find it hard to believe anyone would pity you, Jeri Wylder. You’re a strong, independent woman, and the mind is amazingly resilient.”
Jeri’s blue eyes sparkled, and she flashed a brilliant smile that Simone knew she’d replay often. “That’s good—for them, I mean.”
“Yes, it is.” She waited a beat before circling back to the thought Jeri purposely didn’t finish. “You mentioned your parents.”
“They died in a plane crash my last year of college. I never bring up the subject because it’s taken too long to say that sentence without breaking down, but the way you look at me makes me actually want to share. Must be that shrink thing.”
“I’m so sorry for your loss, Jeri.” Simone squeezed Jeri’s arm and paused a second before continuing. “I can’t imagine how difficult that must’ve been for you at such a young age.”
“It was a challenge, but I managed.” She stared straight ahead.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“My father dreamed of becoming a pilot all his life. When he finally got his license, he couldn’t wait to take my mother up. I would’ve been with them that day but was cramming for midterms. Dad lost his bearings in a sudden thunderstorm while trying to land at a private airstrip in Guilford County. They died instantly.”
“Oh, Jeri.”
Their arms were still joined, and Jeri tightened her grip. “If that wasn’t bad enough, the owner of the plane sued my parents’ estate. He took our family home and cleaned out their bank accounts, all for one crappy airplane and what he called future loss of business.”
“Adversity can bring out the best or worst in people. Was there no other family to help out after your parents passed?”
“Not really, at least none that came forward after the accident or…funeral.”
“How did you manage? You were so young.” Simone’s gaze met Jeri’s and held. She genuinely wanted to know.
“Fortunately, I was in my senior year, so I worked to pay for the last semester and then got a full-time job as a club bouncer. A friend of mine, Casey, owns the Cop Out downtown and had a small apartment over the bar I rented for next to nothing. I finally bought the family home back a few years ago. Anyway, Casey’s retired NYPD and encouraged me to give Greensboro Police a chance. And here I am.”
“You’ve done well for yourself. You should be proud. I’m sure your parents would be.”
“I like to think so.”
“Did you talk to someone after your parents died, a therapist, to help with the grief?”
Jeri hung her head and slowly pulled away from Simone. “Yes and no. I was raised to believe asking for help was a weakness, so I resisted for months and tried to work through the grief on my own. When I finally did go see someone, I couldn’t open up. I kept hearing my father’s voice and feeling like I was betraying everything he’d taught me. And I couldn’t really afford the rates, so I stopped.”
Simone wanted to hug Jeri, console and protect her, but sensed Jeri couldn’t take her kindness at the moment. Her history certainly explained why Jeri wasn’t comfortable asking for help. She hadn’t had the skills or trust to do the work when she was young so therapy had failed her when she needed it most. Simone stopped walking and took Jeri’s hands. “I’m so sorry all of that happened to you.”
Jeri stared over Simone’s shoulder as if gazing into the past. She waited to see if Jeri would offer anything further, but when it became obvious the time for revelation had passed, she reluctantly withdrew her hands from Jeri’s and waved toward her building. “This is my stop.”
“I had no idea we’d walked so far.” Jeri glanced longingly from Simone to the building and back. “Can I—?”
“Can you what?” Simone’s heart rate quickened with the possibility of what Jeri was about to ask and the fear of her answer.
“Never mind, it’s late. Thanks for the walk. Sleep well.”
Only when Jeri disappeared around the corner did Simone’s urge to call after her also vanish. Jeri’s deep, almost chronic suffering wrenched at Simone’s need to help and at her heartstrings. It was her personal weakness and her greatest source of professional accomplishment but combining the two was asking for disaster for both of them. She had to keep their relationship on a strictly friendship level.
In the safety of her condo, she pushed her emotions aside and reviewed Jeri’s story from a more analytical perspective. Orphaned in her early twenties, Jeri lived on her own without the help and support of family. Some young folks would’ve developed a rebellious attitude and sizeable chip on their shoulders, but not Jeri. Stripped of her family and finances, she found respectable employment, eventually regained her family home, and made a new life for herself. Remarkable woman.
She crawled in bed and hugged a pillow to her chest. Jeri’s touch stirred more than physical need. She’d ignited a hunger for intimacy that Simone hadn’t wanted since Kay. The pain of really loving someone had been too devastating once. Could she open up again? Did she want to? She closed her eyes and willed the memories and feelings of the past into the present. But when she fantasized of deep kisses, intimate touches, and desire, this time she wasn’t with Kay. Jeri inhabited her thoughts and dreams, mined her passion, and freed her body and spirit.
Simone jerked awake, rolled onto her back, and ran her hands across the cool bedsheets. Only a dream. Triggered by Jeri’s touch. The psychological significance was clear—a reminder of what she’d been missing, or avoiding, all these years.
And a simple hug catapulted Simone into an emotional dilemma of epic proportions. Why now? Why Jeri Wylder? An old proverb her mother used to recite came to mind: What I’m afraid to hear I better say first myself.
Chapter Seventeen
Coward. Jeri left Simone standing in the street last night, unable to ask for what she wanted—to go upstairs and continue their conversation. Had it been Simone’s comments about PTSD that made her seem not so crazy, her own admission about failing at therapy, or Simone herself that accounted for Jeri’s calm and peaceful feeling? But calm and peace eventually vanished, and anxiety and turmoil took over. The inventory of reasons she shouldn’t get involved with Simone scrolled through Jeri’s mind again as she drove back to the office after her final pickup that afternoon. She was almost at the station when the call was dispatched.
“Car Eleven-fourteen, respond to the Madison Building at Elm and Fisher, reference possible shots fired on the fourth floor. Male complainant in 4A.”
Randy acknowledged the call, and Jeri executed a U-turn in the middle of the street. If Simone was in trouble, Jeri was going. Regulations be damned. She’d check things out and be gone before Randy arrived. If not, he wouldn’t report her.
She clutched the steering wheel and skidded to a stop in front of the building. The windshield of Simone’s vintage Mustang parked in the lot shimmered with wet graffiti. Vandals, hopefully nothing more. She bolted up four flights of stairs, noting firecracker residue near each exit door. On the top landing, Jeri took a deep breath and looked through the glass window into the hallway. The door to 4A was farther down to her right and slightly ajar.
Jeri unholstered the off-duty weapon from her ankle, eased open the stairwell door, and slipped into the hall. Doors on either side. Her breathing quickened. She listened and then edged forward, shivering as cold sweat prickled her skin. With her free hand, she nudged Simone’s door wider. “Greensboro Police, is anyone home?” No response.
She stepped inside, pointed her weapon, and scanned the large open living space. Her hand shook and her pulse pounded in her ears. She couldn’t hear. No. That was before. Crouching behind the kitchen counter, she listened for voices or movement. She wiped sweat from her eyes and willed her hand to steady. Wait for backup.
What if she had to fire her weapon? Could she do it again? Could she shoot another person if faced with the same situation again? Would she freeze or simply give up? She shouldn’t be here, but Simone could be in trouble. She peered around the counter and spotted a glass block wall at her eleven o’clock.
A shadow crossed behind the enclosure. Had she imagined it? Jeri partially stood, her legs wobbly, and edged closer. Another flash of movement. She flattened against the partition and slid around the corner into a bedroom. Clear. Ahead, another damn door.
The last door. Why can’t I remember what’s behind the last door? “Stop it. Focus on now,” she muttered under her breath. The next few feet toward the door stretched like miles in a minefield. When she was within striking distance, she leveled her gun and raised her leg to deliver a kick.
The bathroom door suddenly opened, and Simone stared down the barrel of Jeri’s Walther .380.
“Oh my God!” Simone raised her hands, her face ashen.
Jeri collapsed against the glass wall and slid to the floor. “Oh fuck, fuck, fuck.” She dropped her weapon in her lap and buried her face in her hands. “I almost killed you.”
Simone stooped beside her and lightly touched her shoulder. “I don’t know about that, but you sure gave me a fright. Are you okay? You’re shaking.”
“I saw…that night…damn. I shouldn’t be here.” She tried to get up, but her legs wouldn’t hold her. She slumped again. “I’m sorry.”
“Shush.” Simone cupped Jeri’s chin and searched her face. “Your pupils are dilated and your pulse is racing. Concentrate on my voice and try to steady your breathing.”
“Wh—what’s wrong with me?” Jeri pulled for breath.
“Possibly a panic attack or anxiety from the memories. Just breathe.”
Simone’s soothing voice and the motion of her hand working small circles on Jeri’s back slowly calmed her. “I need to get out of here before another officer arrives. I’m not supposed to take any law enforcement action while I’m on limited duty.”
