Chapter Eighteen
There was a lot that was said in the department after that.
Eve, thankfully, heard little to none of it while sitting in Darius’s office with Winnie.
The younger woman shared a bag of cookies with her while Theo, his father the sheriff, Winnie’s father the deputy, and Darius were going room to room, doing who knew what.
All Eve did know was that she was in deep trouble no matter how she looked at what she had done.
Sometime within their stay inside of Darius’s office, Eve let out a sigh that was loud, long and filled with defeat.
“I’m doomed,” she said. “Big doomed. Doomed bad. Badly doomed. The worst doomed.”
Winnie had been poring over information on her laptop, forgotten cookie hovering over the trackpad while she did so.
At this stream of exclamations, she looked up.
“I’ve seen this department come together and protect each other before, even against some pretty scary odds. No matter what Mr. Keys decides to do, they won’t let anything happen to you or Mitchell.”
Eve lolled her head to the side to look at the girl head on.
“I wasn’t talking about this business with Scott, Toby and the hired hitpeople.”
It took Winnie a second, but she finally clued in. A small smile turned up the corner of her lips.
“You’re afraid of Detective Williams,” she clarified. “Because you basically told the bad guys that you knew they were bad and exactly what evidence you had to prove it.”
Eve dropped her head down and huffed.
“It wasn’t like I was planning to do it,” she defended. “It just kind of came out.”
That was as true as a truth could be. Sitting there across from Scott with his fancy shoes and Toby with his nonchalant attitude had been grating. But not for the reasons it should have been.
Scott had requested to talk to her and Darius to threaten them. To threaten her. To fire her and make a show of it.
And he’d brought Toby to do it.
That grating against her nerves had been a noise that had transformed into absolute quiet once Eve had realized this might be her only chance to play their own hand.
They hadn’t been certain that the flight records of Toby’s private jet had been the reason for Scott pushing for the wedding, for Gary’s murder or for the subsequent attacks.
So Eve had gambled with the piece of potential evidence.
Or, really, she had used it as bait.
Bait that had forced Darius to make his own moves.
He had put her in his office without an explanation of what he was about to do, only that she and Winnie needed to wait.
It felt like waiting outside of the principal’s office in school.
She was definitely going to get a talking-to about her behavior.
Eve pushed herself forward in the roller chair, tucking her legs up against her chest as she did so. Her shoulder hurt a little, but she had more pressing things to worry about.
“I wanted to help us skip to the end of this thing,” she said. “It feels like months since Gary’s body was found. And after last night, I can’t stand waiting for the other shoe to drop on us. I’d rather throw my own shoe first to see what happens.”
“I understand why you did it,” she said. “Last night was terrifying, and I wasn’t even there.”
Winnie’s tone was soft and caring, a far cry from how the young woman had yelled at their attacker at Darius’s house. Theo’s attacker. She had only fully settled down once she was sitting next to Theo after the paramedics had given him the okay.
Though, if Eve were a betting woman she would put money on the fact that Winnie’s cute and gentle appearance could transform into feral at any moment. A kind of feral that would probably put the men around them to shame.
It’s one reason why Eve liked Winnie so much. She felt a kinship there.
She also was starting to be so fond of Winnie for the simple fact that both she and Theo genuinely seemed to care about Darius.
Even though both of their parents worked at the department, they had stayed in proximity to their detective.
Theo had left them in the office as Darius’s shadow earlier.
Eve had no doubt he would return with the ready-to-scold-her detective too.
“Do you think he’ll really be mad at me for showing my hand to Scott and maybe messing up the investigation?” Eve paused midspin to ask. If it had been Theo, he would have probably just nodded. Instead, Winnie was thoughtful with her answer.
“I think he’ll raise his voice and huff at you, but I don’t think he’s mad.
” She put the cookie in her hand down and finally closed her laptop.
“I think he’s just worried, you know? And not because of the investigation.
He cares about you, and you just spit in the face of the monster he’s trying to catch.
No matter how good a detective he is, he can’t predict the future.
He knows that, which means he knows that he’ll never be able to one-hundred-percent keep you from getting hurt.
That plus the fact that both of you have already been shot probably isn’t helping his frustration. ”
Eve let her mouth hang open a little. She hadn’t expected an in-depth opinion. One that, after her accidental eavesdropping earlier, made a slow blush slid up to her cheeks.
She tried to play the feeling off.
“You make it sound like I’m more important to him than I am,” Eve said. “I haven’t even seen the man in over twenty years.”
Winnie’s smile was small and warm. Her next question caught Eve off guard.
“Have you had any serious boyfriends in those twentysomething years?”
Eve was further thrown off by how immediate her no was.
“I mean, there was really no time for it when I was younger,” she tacked on. “I was taking care of my dad, and then I was working to pay off our debt. Then I was trying to find my place in the world, and well, I didn’t have much space to do anything.”
“So you’ve never dated anyone? Ever?”
There was no pressure or harshness in Winnie’s questions. Just a genuine curiosity.
It made Eve pause a little to think about the best way to phrase her answer.
“No, I did date some,” she admitted. “Though, I’m not sure any of it counts.
Most were double dates from coworkers where they dragged me along, while others were just casual meetups or as a result of bumping into someone.
I tried a dating app once, went to the movies and had a nice meal, but it didn’t work out. None of them ever worked out.”
Winnie’s gaze was expectant.
With a small sigh of defeat, Eve smiled as she continued.
“As silly as it sounds, as pathetic as it sounds, I think a part of me just kept looking for the boy next door.”
“Detective Williams,” Winnie expounded.
Eve nodded.
“Before I left, we were best friends with just a pure, innocent friendship. And yet I think Darius somehow became my standard for everything.” It was true, Eve realized.
Now more than ever. Sure, she’d had her first kiss.
Her first time. Her first boyfriend in name and then her first breakup.
She had experienced different dates and men and had tried her best to…
care. But none of them had stuck. Not like the boy next door had.
“I had a coworker who was a little too invested in my lack of love life and would try every day to sell me on the ideal of true love and soul mates. One day she was really, really insistent on me putting myself out there so I’d find a half. ”
“Find a half,” Winnie repeated.
“Everyone is out there in the world looking for their other half, so when they find them they can finally feel whole,” Eve said. “She said no matter how hard I was faking it, no one can be happy as a half.”
Eve raised her hand to stop whatever feelings Winnie might have had about that.
“I don’t think that’s true,” Eve added quickly. “I think people can be whole all by themselves, and if they want to be with someone, that someone can add on to their lives and be just as meaningful—”
Winnie was quick. “But?” she ventured.
Eve knew she should have felt embarrassed or shy or something at what she said next. She didn’t, though.
“Since the days when Darius let me in through his bedroom window as kids, I’ve never been able to move on from him.
” No heat ran up her neck or pooled in her cheeks.
No warmth surrounded her heart or flooded her belly.
She felt completely unchanged. What she was saying was just a fact.
“And I know it’s wild to say that some boy I knew as a kid—the same boy I didn’t see for over twenty years—completely changed me, but he did.
I think that’s why I’ve never really settled, at least when it comes to relationships. Part of me just…”
Eve tilted her head to side, as if movement would make it easier to find the right words.
She wasn’t sure if it worked.
She simply said what she now knew as true.
“Part of me just never forgot that window. Never forgot the boy sitting inside that room.” Eve ran a thumb across the side of her hand.
The one she had gotten at the warehouse all those years ago.
Their first matching scar. She lowered her voice, tired for the woman who had gone on those dates, trying to figure out why she couldn’t make her heart move at all.
Trying to find her other half but eventually giving up when she couldn’t.
Now Eve understood why it had never worked.
Why it never would.
It was such a jolting revelation, and yet it didn’t really feel like anything all that new.
Eve looked at Winnie and told her straight and true.
“I’ve never been able to find my other half out there because I’ve never been a half myself. Not since I met Darius. Without trying to, without meaning to, and I guess without me realizing it either, he made me whole.”
That was the long and short of it.
The damn ridiculous truth.