Love Is Louder (27 page)

It is the morning of the Fourth of July. The air is already thick with humidity at eight o’clock when the police cruiser pulls up my driveway. I feel like I’m being body slammed, and my gut plummets to my feet. The doorbell rings, and I let the police officer inside as I wrench one hand through my hair. We go through the introductions, and I sit down, unable to carry my weight. This is too much. Cindy and Mom stayed at the hospital, so I could come home to take a shower before I headed back to stand vigil over that tiny, fragile human life.

Officer Harvey peers around my living room and into the kitchen. He has dark circles under his eyes, black hair with specs of silver at the temples, and a few days’ scruff on his face. His uniform is impeccably starched, and his shoes shine like two pieces of black licorice. He looks to be in his early fifties, confident and accustomed to soothing worried citizens.

“Did your sister have enemies? Did anyone bother her?” Officer Harvey asks.

“Not that I know of. She would have told me.” Well, I hope she would have. “Were there any witnesses?” I ask, lifting my eyes from the floor I’ve been staring at for the last couple of minutes. “That’s all I want to know.”

“No one. A passing car almost hit her. She was barely breathing when they found her on the side of the road.”

“Someone must have seen something.”

“There are people on the scene and detectives being dispatched. We are doing everything we can,” he says in a sympathetic voice. “Was your sister into anything?”

“What do you mean?” I look at the clock on the wall. They pronounced my sister dead less than twelve hours ago. The doctors had to perform a C-section, and now my niece is in a plastic case with tubes traveling in and out of her body as she fights for her life.

“Drugs? Anything like that?”

“She was fucking pregnant!” I bellow, balling my fists at my side. “My sister wouldn’t put her baby at risk like that.” The nerve of this asshole to think my sister was some irresponsible female jeopardizing the life of her unborn child! I launch myself off the couch, stalk to the window and glare out past the glass to the peace outside. I need to calm down before I open my mouth again. Rubbing my hands over my face, I reluctantly return my attention to Officer Harvey standing in the middle of my living room scribbling on his notepad.

“It’s just procedure. We have to make sure we go down every avenue. There could be things you don’t know about your sister. I’ve seen it before.” He smiles at me kindly. “What about a boyfriend? Where is the father of the baby?” He continues placing his pen over the paper, ready to scratch some more words while he’s fucking firing questions at me like he’s shooting bullets.

“He’s in Florida.”

“What’s his name?”

“Cole...Fuck, I can’t remember his last name.” I stare blankly at him in despair. Is she really fucking gone? My baby sister Doe. She. Is. Gone. I drop my tear-blurred eyes to the gold ring on my finger she gave me on my last birthday.

“Cole Foster?”

“Yeah,” I grumble in a daze, shoving my hands into my pockets. “How did you know?”

“Your sister had a cell phone on her, and he was one of her recent calls.”

“Oh.”

My fucking brain goes haywire. I hate that douchebag. Cole left three months ago at the end of my sister’s first trimester. What the hell was going on with them? She told him she wasn’t speaking to him and didn’t want to see him again when he said he was leaving her.

“Then she made a couple of calls to you and your mother.”

“Fuck.” If I had answered my phone, she would be alive right now. I don’t want to be reminded of the fact I let her down. I don’t say this out loud, though. I fidget from one foot to another, wanting to turn back time so I can answer my phone, jump into my truck, and pick her up.

“Were they having problems?”

“Not that I know of. Only that he left her.”

“Did they fight? Did he ever hit her?”

I think about what I know about Cole and answer, “I don’t know.” The thought of him striking my sister makes my gut twist. I don’t want to go there. Meadow would have told me. She told me everything.

“We checked his record, and it’s pretty clean except for some parking tickets and a speeding ticket. There’s no domestic violence at all, but in most cases, the victim never reports it.”

“Shit.” I hope she didn’t go through anything like that. I don’t want to discuss that quite possibly my sister could have been abused. I don’t care about his background. I want them to find out who was in the car that hit her. “Who found her?”

“Some college kid coming back from a pre-Fourth of July party. He called 911 as soon as he saw her. We took his statement. He has no prior police record. He’s from a town over and was just driving through on his way home.”

“How do you know it wasn’t this kid that hit her?”

“He has a rock solid alibi, and his friends can vouch for him. He even has some receipts with a time stamp, so he’s clean.”

“Fuck.”

This is just a sign of things to come.

The July air is simmering. My T-shirt is clinging to my chest, and sweat beads on my forehead as I stare up at the cloudless black sky dotted with silver stars. It feels like the edge of forever as I take a swig of my beer, savoring the coolness as I watch the first of some fireworks explode into dazzling colors.

I’m distracted.

It’s been a week since Cole showed up at my mom’s front door. After losing both Dad and Meadow, I don’t think I can take losing Lily, too. I’ve been over every day after work to make sure she has everything she needs. It’s no different than before, but now I can’t take these moments for granted. Tomorrow is Lily’s birthday. I’m not sure how things will go and if my decision to have Cole show up will backfire.

I’m out here to clear my mind, but each time I try, the situation continues consuming my thoughts. No amount of beer or fireworks is going to fix it. As if on cue, the sound of my trilling phone tears me away from it all
momentarily
. Pulling the phone from my pocket, I glance at the flashing screen and smile, feeling her timing couldn’t be any better. She’s the one person I can talk to about something like this.

“Dana.”

“Hey, baby. Would you like some company?” Her voice is flirty.

“I think I can use a little bit of what you’re offering.”

“Good. Because I know you can help me, too. I’m here, so hurry up and open the damn door.”

“Give me a minute. Would ya?”

“What’s going on? You got another woman up there?”

“No, I just got out of work, which has been hell for me, and I’m just relaxing.”

“If you did, I wouldn’t mind joining you. You know me,” she says seductively.

“You’re every man’s dream. Aren’t you? Be right there.” I laugh and hang up the phone. My cock is quickly rising to the challenge. I jump up from the lounge chair on the deck, reenter my house, cross my clean living room (thanks to the cleaners I hired), turn on the stereo so that Coldplay’s “Magic” fills the room, and finally open the front door.

“Sorry, I’m late,” she teases in a dick-stroking whisper. Rubbing her hand across my cheek, she gives me an enticing kiss on the lips before brushing past me and pinching my ass.

“Just the person I want to see,” I say, closing the door behind me and following her into the kitchen. She’s wearing a short black mini dress with strappy black sandals. Her hair sways across her bare back, and her tanned legs go on for miles. She almost makes me forget what I was just lamenting over, and then she pulls out a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black, and I swear I could kiss her, toss her over my shoulder, and take her to my bedroom so I can forget about my problems for a few hours.

“Yeah, it looks like you’re having a really shitty day.”

“How do you know?” My eyes drop to her lips that were around my cock the last time we were together.

“Because I am, too. I needed to come and vent and then possibly release some tension,” she says as a mischievous smile spreads across her face, and her eyes hover at my crotch. “I think we can help each other make it all go away.”

“Calm down there. We’ve got all night for that,” I kid as she rests her palms upon my chest, and her eyes lock with mine. She’s silently begging me with her eyes, wanting me to touch her. Dana has never been patient. “How did you know I was here?”

“I swung by the Bull, and Micah said you’d be here. So, here I am.” She drags her hands down the front of my shirt.

“Okay.” I chuckle, lightly grabbing her wrists. “Before we end up naked and fucking like damn rabbits in the next two minutes, open that bottle. I need to vent.” I head to the cabinet and grab a couple of glasses and fill them with ice.

“What’s going on?” she asks as she kicks off her sandals and twists open the bottle. Once I set down the glasses, she immediately starts to pour, filling them to the rim.

“Cole happened.”

“Cole...” She pauses. “Why does that name sound familiar?” She handsome my drink. She lifts her glass to her lips and raises a brow before she takes a sip.

“Meadow’s ex. Fucker decides to return.”

“Go ahead. I want to hear this shit.”

I tell her about my encounter with the douche that is my niece’s father.

Dana nods her head with each insult I cast out regarding Cole. I don’t see the point of it all. If he cared, he would have come as soon as he knew the baby survived the accident.

Dana is silent. I see her wanting to comfort me, but all I want to do is be rough. I know if I want to take it out on Dana, she will let me. We’ve been there for each other like this.

“Why did he wait four fucking years to come back?”

“I don’t know, babe. People do crazy shit.” Silence descends as we both sip our drinks. “Can I tell you something?”

“Yeah, shoot,” I reply, even though I don’t like the tone of her voice or the fact she just swallowed half the glass of whiskey preceding her last comment.

“There was some talk at the firm about your sister’s case being reopened less than a week ago.”

“What?” I flick my eyes to hers.

“A tip came in that a dark-colored car stopped at the side of the road before the student showed up and called 911.”

“This could be good. Maybe,” I allow, not entirely convinced. “We’ve been getting random tips like this for years. I just don’t know what to think.”

“My office became aware of this through colleagues who are friends with a couple of detectives that worked your sister’s case four years ago,” Dana continues. “Cole Foster is his full name, right?”

“That’s the jackfuck’s name. You think it’s fucking Cole opening this up?”

“I think he may be a suspect.” Dana shrugs, smiling a worried smile. “You’ve got to hope that something will come of this. Revisiting the case is good.”

“This tip may turn out to be nothing. There has to be more,” I mumble. “Do the police have more they’re not telling?”

“Who knows? Maybe the person who killed your sister is trying to point fingers. Cole is the ex that left her. Whoever it is knows Cole’s back. It could be someone who hates him or a friend of Meadow’s seeking justice. Right now, it could be anyone.”

“I don’t know. I wish the person who did this would just step forward. I’ve heard enough bullshit about lack of or circumstantial evidence. The police department was even throwing around the idea that it might have been planned, as if someone wanted her dead. It’s crazy!”

“I don’t know what you want me to say. You have to consider every scenario.”

“There has to be more. I guess I’ll find out more tomorrow.”

“How so?”

“This idiot,” I say, jabbing myself in the chest before continuing, “invited Cole to Lily’s birthday party.”

“Well, first of all, you’re doing a good thing by allowing Lily to meet him. Secondly, I think you’re gonna need backup, so I need to be there just in case.”

“You don’t have to worry about me beating the shit out of him at my niece’s party. Tomorrow is all about her.”

I resolve at that moment to get a lawyer, the best of the best, as a precaution. I don’t know for sure if Cole’s return is the reason that got the ball rolling or what, but the fact he’s back and old wounds are being reopened tells me that he may be the catalyst behind all of it, and I have to be prepared.

“I need a lawyer.”

“I know a good lawyer to help you.”

“I can’t have
good
, Dana. I need the
best
.”

Brandon Trent, a lawyer in Manhattan, is the name Dana throws at me.