CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Cheryl was one of the most beautiful women Kate had ever seen.
She had long hair, a natural light brown to which she added shimmering blond highlights in a balayage that lit up her already vibrant skin.
Her eyes were brown, but instead of a garden variety drab, they were a soft, golden honey with flecks of amber that sparkled when the light hit them.
She had the body of a supermodel and usually dressed the part with loud, fashion-forward clothing that somehow didn’t look loud or forward on her.
Today, her hair flopped like it had been sprinkled with water and left to air-dry.
Her eyes were almost wild with anger, and she wore a plain shirt and leggings that didn't look unattractive so much as they looked like an afterthought, especially considering who was wearing them.
It was clear she wasn't taking the breakup well.
Gee, what gave it away? The hair, the clothes, or the fact that she burst into a field office in a different state to confront Marcus at work?
Cheryl glared at Marcus, but her first words were for Kate. "Oh, look. You and your whore are playing detective again. How sweet."
Kate was too stunned to react, but Marcus frowned and snapped, “Don’t call her that!”
Cheryl lifted her hands in mock apology. “Oh, gee. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend your precious little angel.”
Marcus stepped forward. "Cheryl, let's not."
She slapped him. Hard. Rivera moved toward her, his instincts telling him to secure the threat.
Fortunately, his senses came to him before he followed through.
Kate was still too stunned to do anything but stare numbly as the best thing that might have ever happened to her fell apart before it could actually happen.
When the door opened, Rivera gave the two agents entering a warning look and shook his head softly.
They closed the door, looking grateful to be given permission to leave.
Marcus, for his part, didn’t seem hurt by the blow so much as stunned. Now he was speechless, leaving Cheryl free to unload.
“Why, Marcus?” She lifted her hands and let them drop to her side.
“Why even bother? I mean…” She lifted her right fingertips to her head and pushed them off like she was grappling with an unfathomable level of stupidity.
“What was I even? Why did you go through all of this effort? I mean, you married me?”
Now Marcus found his voice. “Yeah, I did. I married you. And at every freaking turn, you found a way to show me how I wasn’t good enough for you. I wasn’t doing my job as your husband. I wasn’t spending enough time with you. I wasn’t—”
Cheryl interrupted. “Yeah, well, I know who you were spending your time with.” She smiled frostily at Kate and addressed her directly for the first time. “Hi, sweetie. Having fun fucking my husband?”
Kate still couldn’t make her lips form words. That was probably for the best. She didn’t think she could say anything to make this better.
Marcus tried. “We’re not fucking, Cheryl.”
“Oh, bullshit. I have pictures, Marcus.”
Marcus blinked. “You have pictures of us having sex? That’s not possible.”
“Yeah, well,” Cheryl said, fumbling with her phone, “thank God for small blessings. I don’t think I could stand to see how you look when you’re inside her.”
“God, Cheryl, can we just…” Marcus glanced at Kate, then Rivera. Rivera was studying the floor, and Kate was doing her best impression of a mannequin, so he turned back to Cheryl. “Let’s go outside and talk.”
Cheryl looked up from her phone and waved her palm in a chopping motion across her chest. “Oh, we are not talking. We are done talking. I am going to talk, and for the first fucking time, you are going to listen.”
Marcus flared up again. “Me? You’re the one who never listens! All I do is tell you…”
She held the phone up to him, a triumphant and anguished look on her face. His voice trailed off as he looked at the pictures. The color drained from it once more.
Cheryl addressed Kate again. “You can look too, sweetie. Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you.”
Kate was not at all convinced by that promise, but she shuffled forward anyway.
Cheryl did indeed have pictures. She held the phone in her right hand and used her left to swipe toward Kate's and Marcus's right every few seconds.
Kate saw pictures of her and Marcus together.
Most of them were innocent: the two of them laughing, the two of them eating dinner or having coffee.
Kate recognized several of the venues as places they'd eaten while working cases.
Other pictures were innocent but could look very different in context: The two of them entering a hotel together.
The two of them touching, nothing salacious, but if you didn’t know they were partners and friends, it could look flirtatious.
Hell, even knowing the circumstances, it still struck Kate how familiar she was at times, laying her hand on his arm, hugging him, brushing his hair.
The two most damning pictures were from their recent cases.
First was an image of them through a hotel window in Chicago.
Marcus was in a t-shirt and a pair of boxers, sitting on the edge of a bed.
Kate was wrapped in a towel having just stepped out of the shower.
The two of them were talking about the case while Kate grabbed the clothes she'd forgotten so she could dress in the bathroom, but it sure as hell looked like she'd just showered after a lovemaking session, and Marcus was enjoying the afterglow.
The second pictures was them making out in Marcus’s car after her birthday party last month. Marcus’s hand was planted firmly on Kate’s left breast, and a tiny slip of her tongue was visible entering his mouth.
I don’t remember him grabbing my breast was, God only knew why, the thought that first came to Kate’s head. She had to bite her lower lip to keep from saying it aloud.
The second thought and the rest that followed were far more disturbing.
Marcus broke the silence. “How did you get these?”
“What’s the matter?” Cheryl asked. “Need to know who betrayed both of you?”
Kate’s tongue finally loosened. “Cheryl, you need to tell us how you got these. Your life could be in danger.”
Rivera’s head lifted at that. He regarded Kate with a shocked and wary look.
Once more, Kate’s behavior taken out of context was really problematic.
Cheryl’s derisive laughter displayed the other side of that coin.
“Oh my God, really? What, you’re going to tell me that a killer sent these to me because he’s stalking me? These are pictures of you.”
“God damn it, Cheryl,” Marcus said. “Answer the question. How did you get these?”
“Whoever sent these to you knows your address,” Kate replied. “And they’ve been following Marcus and I for a long time. Some of these pictures are over a year old. I don’t feel like you hired a private detective to follow us for over a year.”
“See, that’s the thing, Kate,” Cheryl replied. She was smiling now, but her smile was trembling, and her eyes were moist. “I never hired a detective. I trusted you. Well, no, I never trusted you, but I trusted him. I believed him when he said he loved me.”
“I do love… I did love…” Marcus pressed his palms together in front of his face and took a deep breath before continuing. “Cheryl, who gave you the pictures?”
“Someone who actually gives a shit,” she snapped.
“Cheryl, I know you hate me,” Kate said. “You have every right to feel that way, but I need you to listen.”
“No,” Cheryl whispered. Tears slid down her cheeks as she shook her head slowly from side to side. “No, I’m done listening.”
Kate told her anyway. “If you received these photos as an anonymous tip, then you likely received them from an associate of a serial killer.”
Rivera’s eyes widened. Kate wasn’t sure if he had made the leap yet, but he was definitely thrown off from whatever his previous assumption was.
Cheryl’s face flickered briefly. She looked uncertainly between Marcus and Kate.
“Someone followed us for over a year, then either found your number and texted these to you or found your address… Do they know your address?”
“No, these were texts,” Cheryl said. “And…” She frowned at her phone.
“We’re leading a major investigation,” Kate explained.
“The subject of that investigation has developed a fixation on me. I believe it’s possible, even likely, that the person who sent you these photographs did so as an attempt to sour the relationship between me and Marcus so we’ll be less effective at our jobs. ”
“Not to mention the fact that you’re in danger if this asshole has his sights set on you,” Marcus added. “Listen, you and I need to talk about this. Really talk. We might not be together anymore, but I still want you to be safe.”
Tears now leaked steadily from Cheryl’s eyes. “But we are together, Marcus.” She lifted her left hand, and Kate saw the wedding ring still there. “I said I needed time. I didn’t say I wanted to divorce. I called you as soon as I got these pictures, and you brushed me off.”
“What?” Marcus’s lips worked for a moment before he managed to blurt out. “I did call you!”
“Yeah, to brush me off.”
“I was working!”
“You’re always working.” She looked at Kate, and her face twisted into an ugly grimace as she fought off sobs. “I guess I know what job you were doing.”
Kate opened her mouth to protest, but no sound came out.
“Cheryl—”
“No.” Her voice was firmer now. “I said I’m done listening. I don’t know who got me these pictures, but if they cared enough to let me know that my husband was screwing his partner during our entire marriage, then they did me a favor, and I’m grateful for them.
“I’m leaving you, Marcus. Except not really because I never really had you.”
Marcus fought to remain composed. “Cheryl, I understand that we’re through, but you need to—”
“I’ll send my parents to pick my stuff up from our apartment. I still have my key. I’ll have them leave a check for my portion of the rent for the remainder of the lease, and I’ll talk to the phone company to have our bills separated.”
“Cheryl…”
She took her wedding ring off, lifted Marcus’s hand and pressed it into his palm. She met his eyes and smiled. “I hope you’re happy with her. I really do.”
She spun on her heel and stalked out of the room. Marcus stood where he was, palm up, ring burning a hole in the middle of it, eyes wide and staring as his wife walked out of his life for good.
Kate stood where she was, frozen twenty inches away from him, trying to wrap her head around the revelation that Elijah Cox had someone following her and Marcus, possibly multiple people, for over a year, and they’d never known about it.
That person or people had Cheryl’s number. She was in danger. Marcus was in danger. The danger had never left Kate. Even in the bowels of the most secure prison in the United States, Cox could still reach her.
And those she cared about.