Chapter Thirty-Four
The days following the incident pushed me to my limit. Even though I’d called the cops myself, I’d still been taken into custody. When you were a felon found covered in blood next to a cop with a knife still sticking out of his throat, they took it seriously, as they should.
But I wasn’t a stalker or rapist like Boyd. I was a man who’d fixed up some sketchy, stolen cars and sold a little too much weed when I wasn’t even old enough to drink. There was a huge difference. I was a man who’d defended a woman, and I’d do it again. Regardless, I knew it was going to be a process until my ass saw the light of day.
Luckily, a couple summers ago, I’d hooked up with a really pretty lawyer, Lacy, who lived in Saco. She was one of those tightly wound executive types. We’d stayed in touch because I kept her BMW running and didn’t speak to her like a condescending prick like most mechanics. Having her help me came in clutch.
The county and state police had to step in since Pine Bluff PD would be biased since it was one of their guys. That hadn’t stopped them from roughing me up unnecessarily while they’d taken me in. Typical.
The first investigator I talked to was named Chuck. I told him the whole story about how Maisie and I knew each other and how she’d been acting dodgy when I’d found the note on her windshield. Then I explained we’d been on the trip because she’d run up to me at the parade, asking for help to hide from Boyd. I’d known about how she’d reported Boyd to the state police. Then once we’d been back in town, how I’d seen her slumped over in the back of his car at an intersection and known something was wrong.
The only detail I left out was seeing Noah right after the stabbing. No one had brought him up, which was fine by me. I told them to contact Lennie for a statement because Boyd had harassed him while looking for us.
Then I had to tell the same story to four other people, frontwards, backwards, deconstructed, and every gritty detail even down to my “relations” with Maisie.
I asked each person if they’d noticed Boyd’s pants had been undone and how the idiot hadn’t even kept his gun on him because he’d been too busy trying to choke Maisie and get his limp dick out of his pants. I also asked if they’d thought to check porch cameras from the houses near the cottage to prove it was Boyd who’d left the note. Needless to say, they didn’t like my questions.
At one point, an investigator woke me up by poking me in the ribs with his pen, telling me I was free to go but I couldn’t leave the state and there would be an ongoing investigation.
I assumed Maisie had presented damning evidence to the investigator, like the note and ticket from Boyd. Leave it to her to cover her own ass in a cunning way. Not that that always worked. Two more minutes in that forest would’ve ended very differently.
I was frustrated that as a woman, she had to think like that, but God was I grateful. It saved my ass. I couldn’t be prouder. Even if she wasn’t mine, I was glad I’d saved someone so smart and resourceful from ending up in a shallow grave.
Azalea promised she’d take care of Maisie and send her back to Texas once she was able to travel. Zay was such a nurturer; I knew Maisie was in good hands. It was the only relief I got from the entire process, other than knowing Boyd would never harm her again.
While incarcerated in my formative years, I’d witnessed some brutal shit. I’d watched barbaric things happen at the hands of men. I thought that was why I’d subconsciously surrounded myself with women when I’d gotten out. Along with that, the corruption of cops had become undeniable. Being around them again with the pending threat of imprisonment drummed up a lot of trauma I wasn’t ready to process, along with heartbreak.
I was free but unable to escape my own personal hell.
I felt like a leper coming back to my shop. Lennie only got the most basic details—I was involved in Boyd’s death but not guilty. I could tell by the way he looked at me, he had so many questions, but his tender heart knew I wasn’t in a place to talk. He just hugged me and fed me his new recipe for tabouli. For once, his hippie side paid off. I needed gentleness.
With my absence from the trip and the incident, work had stacked up, so I wasn’t even given the chance to rest. All I had was time to stare at projects, thinking about the woman I loved and the murder. It replayed over and over again in my head. It had been such a knee-jerk reaction. I hadn’t even known what had been happening until blood had been spurting out of his neck. Thing was, I’d do it again. I didn’t know if that certainty should scare me, but I couldn’t change it anyway.
I still had Maisie’s clothes from our trip. She’d left them in the rucksack when she’d left me. I’d never admit it to anyone, but I slept with her sundress bunched up near my face. It still smelled like her mixed with the seaside cottage—sweetness and salty air. I knew the scent would fade over time, but my love for her wouldn’t.
Late in the afternoon, four days after the incident, I was dropping the oil pan under a cursed Chevy Spark when I heard Lennie yell for me in the lobby. Annoyed, I sat up, wiping my hands, assuming he’d fucked up the register again, but the second I saw a burst of pink hair, my heart squeezed tight in my chest.
“Maisie,” I whispered, lifting my arms to hug her, only to realize I couldn’t.
“Hey,” she whispered, her voice shaky. “Chuck cleared me to travel and to see you.”
“I’m gonna call it a night, boss,” Lennie said.
Unable to take my eyes off her, I nodded, waiting in silence while he gathered his things and went out the back door. She had bruises on her neck, broken blood vessels in the corners of her eyes, and a split lip. The sight of her injured made my stomach clench.
“I thought you’d left already.”
“Um, no. I wasn’t really feeling up for the drive and I wanted to talk to you.” She tugged at the sleeves of her hoodie then pulled it closer around her neck.
“You don’t need to thank me.”
She shifted from one foot to the other, her shoulders curving in, making her look smaller than I had ever seen. “It’s not like that.”
“I promise I won’t tell anyone, not even Kaylee,” I offered.
“It’s not that either.”
Emotionally and physically exhausted, I stood there, unable to fill in the gaps.
“Dane, I love you. I don’t want to leave this way.”
A dark laugh crept out of my lips. “Maisie, we can never be together. Especially now.”
“What do you mean? There’s just been so much going on and I—”
“I’ll never know if you love me for me or because I killed Boyd for you. It’s interesting how I’m the right kind of criminal for you now.”
My ears rang with my blunt truth.
She swallowed hard and flinched, like my words were bullets. “You can’t mean that. You can’t seriously think like that.” She sucked in a shaky breath, stepping closer to me.
“I do. Since the moment your little tornado ass landed in this town, you’ve told me time and time again that we can’t be together. That you can’t stay. That you can’t love me. Don’t worry, I believe you now.”
Grayish tears ran down her face, streaking her mascara. I felt like a cruel asshole making her cry and drive herself back to Texas freshly assaulted and heartbroken. It just added to the tally of things I’d done wrong in this lifetime.
“Why are you being like this? Why don’t you believe me when I say I love you and that I want to be with you?”
“Because the only thing that’s changed is I killed a man for you.”
She wiped her face with the sleeve of her hoodie.
I went on, “I don’t want to build a life with someone who’s only with me out of obligation. How will I ever know that you love me just for me?”
“I do!”
“I don’t want someone’s death to tie us together. That can’t be it, Maze.”
“It wouldn’t be. I’ve loved you longer than that.” Tears flooded her eyes as her delicate hand tried to touch my chest, but I reared back. “Dane, please! I’m begging you. I’ll move here. I’ll do anything.” She bawled. “Don’t do this! We’re supposed to be together.”
“I’m asking you to leave, now. I can’t see—” My voice hitched with emotion. “I can’t see you ever again. Please, can you do that for me? Can you make sure I never see you again? You’re making this harder.” I gestured between us. “All of this is just too painful.”
She shook her head, trying to weave herself into my arms for an embrace.
I held her shoulders, walking her backwards to the front door. She grabbed my face, pulling me down for a desperate kiss, her tears mingling with my own. I winced, unable to move my mouth against hers as I slowly pushed her off me, opening the door with a loud swoosh.
“Please,” she whispered, stumbling backward. “Please don’t do this!”
And similar to the moment when I’d killed Boyd, the sight of her staring at me while I shut the door seared into my mind. I knew both would replay over and over in my memory for the rest of my life.