Jaime swallowed hardas she watched Anastasia for a moment or two, her eyes soft as they invited her into this conversation. Genuine and concerned. “Y-you mentioned how I’m ‘lighter’ when I laugh,” Jaime said as she stared down at her hands on the table. Her cup of coffee sat half full and lukewarm, but it was liquid when she needed it for her dry throat. “I feel like I haven’t laughed in so long. I…it’s, I…It’s been rough over the last couple of years.” There! She’d said it.
Anya leaned in slightly, giving Jaime her undivided attention. “Professionally or personally?” she asked delicately. Anya wanted to open the door for Jaime to discuss whatever it was that held her heart hostage.
Jaime swallowed, aware that she was allowing her walls to lower ever so slightly. She couldn’t fathom why. Until recently, Anastasia Grant was a convenient suspect in her mind. But sitting here with her now, Jaime knew there was something about this woman that undid her without warning. “I lost my partner. My…fiancée.”
Anya’s heart dropped. The way Jaime said the word ‘lost’ told Anya everything. This wasn’t a simple breakup. This was the devastating grief of death. She had assumed that maybe Jaime was feeling guilty about her attraction to Anya because of a partner, but not one that was truly gone. “I’m so sorry.”
“Two years ago. Yet here I am, still dealing with it. Still…I don’t know. Letting it get the better of me, maybe?”
“Was it unexpected?” Anya’s heart broke a little more for Jaime when she nodded. “I can’t imagine there’s a timeline to getting past something like that. Why do you think you’re letting it get the better of you?”
There was something soothing in the way Anya spoke to Jaime. Even the therapists she’d seen hadn’t made Jaime feel she could be open with these pent-up feelings. “I can’t concentrate at work. I’m a fucking terrible detective at theminute,” Jaime admitted. “Most days, I can function. Hell, my clearance rate tops the entire department. But this particular case?” Jaime shook her head. “Iknowsomeone is targeting women. Maisie being a sex worker is fucking with my head for reasons that aren’t her fault. She deserves better than what I’m giving her now.”
Targeting women.Plural. Which meant Maisie wasn’t the first. That was something Jaime hadn’t revealed before. However…“Maisie wasn’t a sex worker. I’m sorry, I’m just having trouble understanding the connection.”
Jaime drew in a breath, clenching her hands briefly. “No, I know. At least, I do now. But the place where it happened has brought back memories. The kind of people who frequent those clubs… y-your chamber.” Jaime knew she was reaching. There was only one thing similar about the brothel, Lady A, and what had happened with Taylor. But that one thing spread far enough for Jaime to reach it, so she grabbed onto it. It was better than telling Anastasia Grant that her body’s reaction to her caused her more turmoil than anything else.Though I don’t know how you’re going to keep that under wraps if you don’t get out of your fucking head.
“So your issueiswith sex workers. Specifically, me.” Anya sat back slightly, disappointed.
“No, I don’t have an issue with sex workersoryou. PeoplethinkI do, but I don’t. Not at all. I hate what goes on behind the scenes, the exploitation, but I don’t hate them. I don’t hateyou.”
“Detective—”
Jaime held up a hand, cutting Anya off. She didn’t want this to be formal. She wasn’t here as Detective Baros right now. And she knew she would enjoy hearing Anya say her name. If anything, perhaps Jaime could feel like she was talking to a friend and not someone in the interrogation room. “Please, call me Jaime.”
“Okay, Jaime.”
A shiver worked its way down Jaime’s spine as Anya spoke her name. For the smoothness of her tone, she could have been dripping in honey. Jaime studied those penetrating eyes and smiled. “That sounds much better.”
Anastasia lifted a brow, only knocking Jaime further off her train of thought. “I feel like you’re over-generalizing this profession, and I’m trying to understand why.” Anya paused to think of the most tactful way of asking Jaime about her fiancée and what she had to do with Jaime’s aversion to the profession. At this point, Anya figured Jaime would appreciate her being direct. “May I ask what happened to your fiancée? Was she a sex worker?”
“No. Taylor was a barista. We met at the gym when she asked me to show her how to use one of the machines. She was one of those women who had that instant pull.”Kinda like you, Jaime wanted to add. “We hung out a few times when I was available. I never expected Taylor to ask me out for a drink. Not… a date. It turned out that she hated the gym but had seen me going in a few times from the coffee shop across the street.”
Anastasia smiled, listening intently. She stayed silent as she refilled both coffee mugs with fresh coffee, allowing Jaime to continue without interruption.
“We just worked. I don’t know how—I was never home, and she made it known that she hated my work side of life—but we loved each other, and that seemed to be enough. Maybe it wasn’t as perfect as I remember, but I loved her.” Jaime scoffed, fighting back the lump she felt working its way up her throat. “Until I ultimately let her down.”
Anya frowned. If she had to guess by the rushed speech and jumbled emotions, Jaime hadn’t spoken much about this part of her life. “Jaime, you don’t have to say anything more if it’s too much for you.”
“It’s not.” She appreciated that Anya didn’t want to push this conversation, but it was time to talk about it with someone. And by someone, Jaime didn’t mean a therapist. She’d been there plenty of times and hadn’t come close to spilling everything she was saying now to a complete stranger. But Anya was what she needed. A real,actualperson who listened because they wanted to, not because Jaime had paid for their time. And not because they had to tick a box in order for her to get back to work. “They say talking can help, right?”
“That is what they say.” Anya wondered if Jaime knew how expressive her face could be at times. When the stoic detective was locked away, and Jaime’s more vulnerable side came out, the contrast was remarkable.
“Taylor was a smoker,” Jaime said suddenly, pulling her coffee cup closer and running her index finger down the handle. She hated fidgeting, but that was common these days. She’d tormented herself to the point of being unable to just sit and talk, or to just sit in silence. She always had to be doing something, even if it was mindless. “The day that she…” Jaime cleared her throat. “I’d been working a tough case back then that had been eating up most of my time. It was really ramping up, and we were so close to catching the suspect, which meant more time away for me. So, when I caught an unexpected few hours of downtime, I thought it’d be nice to spend the evening together. Just the two of us with some takeout from our favorite restaurant. Neither of us thought I’d be home until late that evening, but I needed to be there with her. It was…our anniversary.”
Jaime eyed Anya, aware that repeating that night in her head was likely to bring about a whole range of emotions for her. She didn’t want to feel the pain of losing Taylor all over again, but she was living with it daily, so was it really a terrible idea to discuss it?
“She asked me to go out for cigarettes for her. I told her no…just the way I always did. She knew I didn’t like it, and she knew asking me to go to the store would always result in a plain no.”
Anastasia offered a single nod, now comprehending the reason Jaime revealed Taylor was a smoker. A point of contention before an untimely death was certainly a catalyst for griefandfor guilt. “Understandable.”
Jaime hesitated. She was going to sound like a terrible girlfriend to Anya, and for some reason, that bothered her. But if Jaime was going to tell the story, she needed to tell it all. “Then I got called back out. They’d caught the guy we were looking for, and I was determined to interrogate him myself.” Jaime studied Anastasia, noting how she didn’t flinch at the idea of Jaime leaving her fiancée to go back to work on their anniversary.Interesting. “We had a fight about it, I left…and the next time I saw Taylor, s-she uh…was gone, you know?”
Anya frowned. “What happened?” Obviously, Anya was missing a crucial point of the story. The one that explained Jaime’s issues with Anya’s industry of choice.
“She went to the store on the corner across from our apartment when I left for work. For cigarettes.” Jaime carded a hand through her hair and cast her gaze on the table. “The cigarettesIshould have gone and picked up for her.”
“Jaime—”
