From Bad to Worse
Jace hadn't tried to call or text for a whole day now. Maybe I had truly pissed him off and he was back to how he was when we first met. I didn't blame him, I had been very standoffish.
With a groan, I tossed and turned in my bed for the millionth time tonight. The clock beside my bed burned 1:40am into my corneas as if I wasn't already stressing about my lack of sleep tonight. I had work tomorrow—or I guess this morning? But I was dreading seeing him again for fear that I would find myself submitting and spilling my life story just from a scowl or vicious side eye from him.
It would feel good to get everything off my chest, but Jace was dangerous. He would ruin my life by trying to help it.
My brain felt like a cracked-out hamster on a wheel in my skull and I knew sleep was too far out of reach. I shoved my pillow over my face with a frustrated squeal. My phone suddenly screamed through the silence of my bedroom and I already knew it wasn't good.
That feeling was amplified when Jace's contact scrolled across the screen. I quickly answered and put the phone to my ear. "Detective?"
"We got another body, I'll be at your house in ten," just as quickly as his sleep graveled voice answered, it was gone and replaced with the ended call tone. Oof, of course he was still mad but again I really couldn't blame him—
A body! Another body! Was it the same killer? Was it even a murder—
I made myself take a calming breath before throwing on a pair of ripped blue jeans and a loose white t-shirt that looked to be a size too big as the style and exposed one bra strapped shoulder. A quick touchup of concealer on my neck made the healing bruises invisible, I nodded in satisfaction just as my phone dinged with a text from Jace telling me he was here. I suddenly broke out in a nervous sweat but didn't have time to dwell on it before my phone started ringing again.
Simons contact displayed on the screen this time. "Hey," I answered distractedly with the phone tucked between my ear and shoulder as I tossed my hair into a high ponytail in one last feeble attempt to clean up.
"Hey beauty, I'm assuming you're coming to the crime scene since you're awake at this ungodly hour," he said.
"Yeah, I'm actually heading out as we speak," I replied with pinked cheeks at the unusual nickname. I snatched my backpack and stepped out onto my porch, my feet quickly rushing down the metal steps.
"Sweet, can't wait to see you." If my cheeks weren't red before, they definitely were now. I made eye contact with Jace at the end of the walkway, his arms crossed over his chest while he leaned against the passenger side door as usual. A gold brow raised in question, most likely at why my face was the color of a tomato.
"Ya, you too," I replied awkwardly. "I'll see you in a few." I hung up just as I was a foot from the detective.
"Who was that?" he asked. His mood seemed cold along with his features. Dark circles underlined his eyes as if he hadn't slept at all tonight. I had to hold myself back from asking him what crawled up his ass.
I cleared my throat, feeling awkward that he still hadn't moved to open the door. "Uhm—It was Simon asking if I was coming."
"Why wouldn't you?"
The weight of his stare nearly had me bowing my head like a submissive dog. "It's late—or early, I guess. I don't know." I shoved my hands in my back pockets and avoided his eyes.
"Why are you uncomfortable?" he asked in the same way I did the day before.
I scoffed nervously. "I'm not."
"You are."
My face twisted angrily and I forced myself to make eye contact, but his eyes were unwavering. "Why do you assume I'm uncomfortable?"
"You put your hands in your back pockets," the answer was quick.
I fisted my fingers before pulling them out and back to my sides. "Look, I get it. I analyzed you at the office last time and you didn't like it, now you're getting back at me—"
He took a short defensive step forward. "I'm only trying to prove how much I know you. Can you say the same for Simon? Do you think he'd be able to read your body language? Because let me tell you, princess, that shit is important."
I blanched. "Why are you doing this right now? Are you wanting to fight?"
A muscle in his jaw feathered. "Maybe fighting is the only way the truth comes out, even if it is accidentally."
My hands were thrown into the air in exasperation. "Jesus, Jace, can we just go? There's a body waiting. Simon is waiting." I regretted saying it as soon as it came out, but the way his eyes flared in anger made me feel worse. He took a long step until he was flush against me, nearly knocking me over but I fisted my hands into the open edges on his jacket to stay upright.
Gold eyes were staring daggers down into my fearful ones. "He doesn't know about your bruises, does he? He never has, right?"
The heat in my body dissipated as my blood ran cold in my veins. The question discombobulated me.
"What?" I asked dumbly with my mouth agape, knowing my flesh had paled to a ghostly white.
He scoffed bitterly and scanned my face with narrowed eyes but I noticed he had gone ashen, too. "That's what I thought." With a swallow, he stepped back and opened the car door wide open before leaving to his own side. I stood on the sidewalk in a daze.
What did he say? 'He never has'? Did he find out…something?
I forced my legs to move forward to the open door. My nerves were firing in a hundred different directions as I lowered myself onto the bench seat and pulled the door closed behind me. The car shook slightly when the detective slammed his own door shut after sliding behind the wheel. His knuckles turned white from his death grip on the gearshift. I so badly wanted to reach out to calm him, but I was the one that angered him in the first place.
I opened my mouth but quickly snapped it closed again, not knowing what to say as he started driving toward the scene. Before I could find words, he flicked on the radio and turned the hard rock music up to fill the silence until my voice couldn't be heard over the sound if I tried. Taking the hint, I slumped in my seat and pulled my Rubik's cube from my backpack to get lost in the swirling colors.
My leg bounced anxiously and my palms were slick with nervous sweat, making the colored cube slip in my fingers. Why was he being so cruel? Sure I was hiding things, private things, but did that mean I deserved to be shunned? He couldn't just pretend to be civil since we're stuck together in this nonsensical partnership? We clashed harder than an unstoppable object and immovable force but it seemed I was the only one cracking under the pressure.
The tension was making my heart pound erratically, accompanied by sharp pains in my stomach. The cabin of the car was becoming stuffy and suffocating, pushing the pressure on my lungs until it was hard to take a full breath. I needed to get out. This was more than overstimulation—this was the weight of my choices and lies finally crushing me to the point of collapse.
Luckily, he parked in the lot of a skatepark and my flight response took over every fiber of my being by unclasping the smothering seatbelt in a smooth move and pulling the handle of the door open. The metal plate swung to let me out in a chaotic rush. My shoes barely clung to the asphalt beneath me as I took off to the strip of grass on the sidelines of the parking lot. There were no street lamps there, making the area near pitch black, which enticed me to drop to my hands and knees with gulping breaths of night air along the plush grass in my own hidden corner of the world.
"Clary!" A garbled voice sounded in my plugged ears from close by. I turned my head and saw Simon running up to my side before dropping to his knees beside me and rubbing my back.
Over his shoulder, I spotted Jace's sprinting figure come to a complete stop halfway across the parking lot once he saw Simon. His eyes met mine even from a distance and I watched a muscle twitch in his jaw before he turned around back toward the gated park.
I tried not to sigh in disappointment.
"Hey," Simon said softly. I reached up and wrapped my arms around his neck with a calming breath. "Are you ok?"
I nodded. He stood, pulling me up with him until I planted onto shaking legs. "I think I just had a bit of a panic attack, but I'm ok now."
He kept his arms around my waist. "Was it from the body? I just got here and saw you sprint to the grass."
"No, I just—" think Jace knows more than he's telling me— "got stuck in my own head for a minute." I pushed against his chest but he clung tighter. Needle-like goosebumps trailed over my skin.
"Can I do anything?" He set his forehead against mine intimately. I wasn't sure if I was comfortable being this intimate with Simon after one date. It didn't matter that I had known him my whole life. I mean, despite only knowing Jace for a week I felt more intimate—
I shook my head, both in answer and to clear the thought that threatened to change everything. "I really just want to check out the scene and get back home to bed."
"Fair enough." He planted a kiss on my forehead before finally letting me go. I shoved my hands into my back pockets and held a sigh of relief. If Simon observed my discomfort with the way we just interacted, he didn't show it—but I doubted he noticed.
Oh God, was Jace right? The detective was able to read me like a book but the forensic tech only noticed my emotions when I wore them openly on my sleeves. A sudden fatigue washed over me at the hopelessness of my life choices.
Panel vans had begun to show up in the parking lot with busy bodies scrambling to pull on tyvek suits. The forensic teams waved to Simon as we passed.
"Hey, go on ahead, I need to get everyone in order," he said.
I waved him on, earning a kiss on the cheek before his long legs took him to the small group of eager-looking scientists.
It was almost frustrating how much everybody was kissing me without permission.
With a sigh, I walked through the open gate to the group of officers and firemen standing on the concrete top of the skate bowl.
The area was pitch black aside from the couple flashlights that beamed chaotically around the concrete, threatening to make me motion sick. Two dark figures were sitting at the bottom of the bowl but I wasn't able to make out anything else.
"Can somebody turn on the goddamn lights already?" Jace snapped impatiently, his voice emanating from the bowl. He must've been down there.
Just then, the massive surrounding light posts flicked on, their fluorescent lights blinding me for a few seconds even with my arm shielding my eyes from the blast. Once my eyes adjusted enough, I peered down to the figures.
Jace was crouched beside a crumpled, pallid man. At first glance, he only appeared unconscious, but the pool of coagulating blood surrounding his upper half was proof that he had been dead for at least a few hours.
My face twisted into a scowl at the same time Jace looked up at me. His expression wasn't as cold as it had been earlier but I could tell he was still frustrated with me—which was typical and almost soothed my nerves. He tilted his head in a signal for me to come down but I hesitated at the edge of the bowl.
A memory resurfaced from my deep childhood. My small pink velcro shoes were strapped with detachable roller skates beneath them as I stood at the edge of the bowl, trying to find the courage to drop down like I had watched all the big kids do for hours beforehand. But before I could find it in myself to be brave, an older kid with a sneer and an unfortunate cowlick grew impatient and pushed me. I was stable on the wheels for a moment but quickly faceplanted into the deepest part of the bowl, scraping my cheek and forehead against the rough concrete. Young Simon cleaned up my bloody skin and smacked the kid in the face with the wheeled side of his skateboard as payback, unapologetically breaking the bastard's nose and spearing his teeth through his top lip. I was only seven at the time. I stopped coming to the skatepark and gave up roller skating for the foreseeable future after the incident.
Back in the present, Jace noticed my hesitation and stood with extended hands in an offer to catch me. Unease made my stomach distort, but deep down I knew I could trust him. Maybe this was a good first step to prove that to him.
I sat on the edge and flattened my Converse along the wall before pushing off into a half-freefall-half-run down the side. I crashed against his chest into his arms with a spin to ease my momentum. Large hands splayed against my back.
"I got you," he whispered as we settled.
A heavy sigh calmed my heart and I leaned back to give him a nervous smile. "Thank you."
His eyes flicked up to the top of the bowl behind me, peering at something from under his brows with a smug expression. I turned in his grasp to see an irritated looking Simon with his arms crossed over his t-shirt, the muscles in his arms were tense in his standoff with the detective. Embarrassment flushed my body like heated needles as I unhooked Jace's arms from around me and shoved my hands in my back pockets, directing my attention to the poor man whose demise came too soon.
He looked like he was in his early thirties with his disheveled brown hair and soft features. His clothes were battered and soaked through with blood and grime. He looked…homeless, which I guess was possible but not the same as Mr. Thompson.
"Do we have his name yet?" I asked, watching Jace crouch back down and root through a blood stiffened jacket pocket with a pair of black rubber gloves. A folded envelope was pulled from the pocket, he inspected it.
"Jacob Maltori," he said and opened the envelope to reveal an uncashed check. I bent down closer to look over his shoulder. The check was written from the Social Security Administration and the memo at the bottom confirmed it to be a Welfare check. But that's not what my mind was focused on.
"Do you have an extra glove?" I asked, placing a hand on his shoulder.
He tensed beneath my touch before relaxing again. "I do but you'll have to grab it. I can't touch anything other than the evidence now." The envelope slipped into a clear bag as he spoke.
"Okay, well where is it?" I was getting antsy. The need to confirm my suspicions gnawed at my bones and he was being too slow for comfort.
He looked at me with a quirked eyebrow and a smirk. "Front pocket of my jeans."
I gave him a deadpan stare but refused to back down. With a shrug, I shoved my hand deep into his pocket which seemed to surprise him. But when my fingers didn't feel anything except jean fabric and the hard muscle of his thigh through the thin material, I looked up at him in confusion.
"Sorry, other pocket," he chuckled.
I rolled my eyes and did the same with the other pocket until I felt the familiar latex—I also thought I felt his jeans get tighter but I chalked it up to my imagination. The glove appeared in my palm once my hand was out of his pocket and I shot the detective a satisfied look, but he was flashing one back down at me as well with a glint behind his gold orbs. My face fell into a scowl and I took a large step away.
Despite the discomfort I felt with being in close proximity to a dead person, the crazed excitement of possibly finding one particular clue overshadowed my anxieties. The glove snapped against my wrist while I crouched near his limp hand positioned above his head in a fist. Jace watched me pry the rigor mortis fingers open and audibly exhaled when a rose fell from his palm.
"What the fuck," I breathed and held up the flower by its short cut stem.
"It's green," he mumbled. The rose was free of blood and dirt, displaying its vibrant green petals. "Have you ever seen a green rose?"
I looked up at him with a shake of my head and watched Simon slide down the wall with an evidence bag in hand. I stood as he approached with the top open. The evidence gently settled at the bottom before he sealed it and planted a kiss on the top of my head.
"What does this mean?" I asked with a glance at the detective. He was giving Simon a death glare to the back of his head until he looked back at me with softer eyes.
"It means we got a serial killer on our hands, princess," Jace answered.
"A puzzle to solve," I whispered to myself with upturned lips.
"Seems you got your work cut out for you," Simon chuckled lowly.
"Are you still here?" Jace growled sarcastically at the tech. I gave him a serrated look but he ignored it.
"I'm usually the last to leave, so feel free to go, detective," the tech retorted. I shoved my hands in my back pockets and took several steps away from both of them.
Jace chuckled darkly and snapped off his gloves in a way that spiked my nerves in the tension. "Do you have an issue with me, Einstein?"
Simon straightened his shoulders and took a step forward. "Seems like you're the one with the issue. Does it bother you that she likes me more than you?"
My face grew hot and I opened my mouth to retort but Jace interrupted. "Real nice dragging her into your bullshit. I guess everything I've told her about how inadequate you are was true after all. Don't you agree, princess?"
I threw my hands up in frustration but was cut off again, this time by Simon. "I'll show her how adequate I am at kicking your ass."
"Let's make another crime scene," Jace spat and began stepping closer.
Everybody above stopped to watch the situation unfold, embarrassing me further with every step the men stalked toward each other. Jace started chucking off his jacket until I rushed to step between them just as they were about to collide. I gave Simon my back while I looked up at Jace with my hands splayed on his tense abdomen. Neither looked at me, only at each other with sneers painting their faces while their chests heaved against my front and back.
A mask of rage pulled my lip upward. "Both of you get a fucking grip. A man was murdered not five feet from us, where the fuck is the respect?" I was fuming to the point where I felt like my skin was steaming against the brisk Oregon air. Jace's eyes finally met mine and the fire behind them dwindled slightly. "It is too goddamn early for this, detective. Go cool off, I'll talk to you in a second."
He chewed the inside of his cheek as he flicked his eyes up to the tech behind me, but I gave a light push with my hands. A bitter scoff left his lips before he slipped his arms back into his jacket and pulled himself up onto the ledge of the bowl.
Simon wrapped a protective arm around my waist but I whirled on him with equal fire. "Don't touch me," I bit and pushed his hand away. He visibly blanched. "How dare you drag me into your dick measuring contest in front of everybody—"
Auburn eyebrows furrowed and upper lip dipped into a grimace. "He's the one that—"
"He's difficult, I know. God, trust me, Simon, I fucking know. But this was not the place to start a fight—you can't hit this one in the face with a skateboard and get away with it this time. You and your techs get what you need from the scene and pack up." I turned and started to walk to the ledge where Jace had disappeared.
A bitter, incredulous laugh cut through the silence. "You're just going to take his side? Over mine?"
A deep breath entered my lungs. "I'm not taking sides, Simon, I'm trying to do my fucking job for this poor man's sake. Please, just do yours. I'll talk to you later today." I extended my hand up to an awaiting police officer, who hauled me up easily. I gave a nod in thanks before stalking off to find my detective.