Fool Me Twice by Lizzie Morton

 

 

Twenty-Eight

 

Britney 6 months later

 

The familiar smell of coffee hits my nose when I step inside the coffee shop where Evan and I agreed to meet. I look around and find his dark hair, a head above everyone else, tucked away in a corner. He hasn’t seen me yet, so I go to the counter and order a coffee first. When I have my order, I make my way to the table where he’s sitting.

I watch as he taps away on the screen of his phone. There’s no doubting he’s hot, in that older, sexy FBI agent kind of way, but my heart doesn’t beat for him. It doesn’t matter how much time has passed and how much distance there is between us, my heart only beats for one person. A certain NFL asshole.

I clear my throat and he looks up, smiling. “Miss Shaw. It’s great to see you again and looking so well.”

“Agent Price, please, call me Britney.”

He chuckles and gestures to the seat across the table from his. “Well then, please, call me Evan.”

“I appreciate that you travelled all this way,” I say, sitting down, “but we could have had this conversation over the phone.”

He smiles warmly. “I know. I wanted to check you were ok.”

He means he wanted him to check I was ok.

“I have good days and bad days,” I admit.

He nods, knowingly. “That’s to be expected. These things aren’t easy to come back from.”

“You say it like you know.” Like I do with Becket, I see something in his eyes, the same thing I see in my own when I look in the mirror. Pain, sadness, experience.

“It comes with the job, seeing the things I do. But less about me, I’m here for you. So, what can I do for you?”

“At the hospital, you offered to tell me a little more about the case. Why?”

“I think you know why. I can’t tell you everything, only what is already public knowledge. But I’m assuming you know nothing …”

“Ok …” My chest starts to feel tight. I purposely avoid anything that might remind me of what happened. It’s too painful.

“Sometimes, knowledge can help with—”

“Closure,” I finish.

He gives me a tight smile. “Exactly.”

Now I know why he picked the quietest corner, away from the hustle and bustle of people, so we can have this conversation in peace. “Who was it?” I ask.

He doesn’t even try to hide his grimace. “The Cat.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Seriously? ‘The Cat.’ Like a pussy cat?”

He chuckles, but his voice is devoid of all emotion when he replies, “The name we give him doesn’t come from what he likens himself to be.”

A lump forms in my throat and I struggle to swallow, I suddenly know the answer, but still I ask the question, “Then where does it come from?”

“From the game he plays with his victims. He likes to play a game of Cat and Mouse.”

Everything around me disappears.

 

“The only time we’ve ever had a cat in the hotel was when we had mice.”

“There was a cat in my room … I thought someone was being murdered.”

“Ew, that means there are mice.”

 

Evan’s voice brings me back from the darkness, “Britney?” His face is full of concern.

I shiver despite the heat. My whole body is covered in a sheen of cold sweat.

“Britney?” says Evan, his face full of concern. “We don’t have to do this, we can stop.”

I shake my head and swallow. “He kept saying it was time to play a game.”

Evan glances out of the window before replying, “It’s his M.O. It’s what he says to all his victims.”

“How do you know?”

“Because the child he leaves sitting with the body always tells the officer first on the scene that Mommy lost the game. He always leaves a witness, but never a trace of who he is.”

Becket … his nightmares … “They were children?” I whisper in horror.

My heart aches for what he’s been through and how I treated him when I was in that dark place, I thought I’d never come out of. I blamed the one person I should have sought comfort from, the only person who could understand my pain, because he’d been through the same thing himself. It still doesn’t change the fact he didn’t trust me enough to tell me something that might have kept me safe.

Evan clears his throat and says, “He was eleven. I can’t tell you much more than that I’m afraid. If you want details it has to come from him. It’s not my story to tell.”

“It’s ok. I appreciate you taking the time to come here and tell me what you have. It helps a little.”

He leans forward and clasps his hands in front of him on the table. Deep brown eyes bore into mine. “Have you spoken to anyone about what you’ve been through?”

“No.” I look down awkwardly and wrap my hands around my cup.

He slides a card across the table. I keep my gaze set on my coffee while I wait for an explanation.

“She specializes in trauma. She’s the best in New York. She could really help you process what you’ve been through.” He pauses, takes a deep breath and continues, “I had to look into your file. I know about your mom and I know what comes with growing up with that kind of parent. This woman also deals with childhood trauma.”

My eyes start to water, as I shakily reply, “Thank you.”

“There will be some follow-ups in future months. We will keep you up to date on progress if we know or hear anything. Make sure you keep yourself safe.” His eyes scour the room and when they find my security detail in the distance, the one Becket outright demanded he pay to always be with me, he settles and looks more at ease. Standing, he smiles down at me. “I have to go, work calls, always. It was great to see you again and to see you looking so much better.”

“Thank you.”

Before he leaves, he looks down at the card which remains untouched on the table. “Give her a call. She will help make things clearer, help you to process. She might help you to see you’re punishing the wrong person in all of this.”

I watch Evan walk out of the coffee shop before I pick up the card. It burns my skin as I pass it between my fingers, wondering to myself whether I’m finally ready to open the box and deal with my past. Whether I’m finally ready to move forward.

 

***

 

“How did it go?” asks Jess as she enters the kitchen of our apartment, throwing her bag down on the kitchen worktop.

I look up from my glass of wine with a grimace.

“That bad, huh?”

“It wasn’t the best,” I admit.

“These things take time. It was your first session. Don’t give up yet.”

“Evan made it sound like it would be easy,” I grumble, picking up my wine glass and taking a long drink.

Jess wanders over to the fridge, pulls out a fresh bottle and fills a glass for herself. She looks over at me expectantly, so I drain what’s left in my own and she refills it. Right to the brim. There’s a reason we’re best friends.

When she’s had a sip of her own, she says, “Evan makes it sound easy because he sees these things every day. What you went through isn’t normal, it isn’t a game.”

Blackness creeps in. It’s time to play a game.

“Shit! I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to say that.”

I blink, coming back around, taking in her now ashen face.

“Brit, are you ok?”

“I don’t know how to do this. Move on, act like things are normal. They never will be,” I admit, staring into the clear liquid in my glass. “What happens next?”

“What would you like to happen next?” asks Jess, visibly righting herself as she comes back around from her mistake. When I don’t answer she continues, “You have to want this. If you don’t, it won’t work. It has to be the right time for you.”

I pick up my glass with a shaky hand and swallow the cool liquid down. It provides some relief. I glance back at Jess and nod. I’m ready for her to continue. She’s telling me exactly what I need to hear, I just need to actually hear it.

“Somewhere down the line you might be able to get your life back. Is that what you want?”

“Yes,” I whisper.

Her face brightens. “What do you want? What’s the thing you need most, right at this very moment?”

“Becket,” I reply.

“Go over what happened. Take me back to the beginning. You don’t have to tell me everything, but maybe we can come up with a plan together.”

So, I do. I seek solace in my closest friend, and by telling the story, letting everything out, I’m able to take a step forward.

“It’s understandable that you would blame Becket,” agrees Jess.

I nod. “It was his fault. If he’d told me what he’d seen, then maybe it wouldn’t have happened.”

She pauses and bites her lip. “I can see why you’d think that …”

“I’m sensing a but …”

“Even if you’d known, it most likely still would have happened.”

I frown, not quite sure what she’s getting at. “What do you mean?”

Quietly, she says, “He’s a serial killer, B. It doesn’t matter if you knew or not. He still would have found you if he wanted to. Becket isn’t responsible for what someone else did.”

“But he—”

“Did what he thought was right to protect you and others … came to your rescue even though it meant putting himself at risk. Admit it, you can’t get the answers you want so you’re looking for someone to blame.”

I narrow my eyes. “That’s what you think I’m doing? Placing the blame on someone for the sake of it?”

Hesitantly she answers, “Maybe.”

“Why would I blame Becket if it wasn’t his fault?”

“Because you know that he loves you. You’re lashing out at him because you know you can.”

The day in the hospital after Becket’s accident passes through my mind. All his misdirected anger towards me for everything that happened. How I stood by him no matter what. I finish, “Because we know that even when the people we love see us at our worst, they’ll still be there cheering us on at the sidelines.”

What have I done? I don’t know how to fix this. There’s a lot of water under the bridge, but essentially, I’m punishing Becket for all the wrong things. I’ve blamed him for something completely out of his control.

I sit pondering to myself for a moment, wondering how I’m supposed to reach out to him when I’m all the way in New York and he’s in Jacksonville. Everything is against us right now.

Then it hits me. I know what I need to do.

“Where’s the fire?” exclaims Jess as I charge to my bedroom.

She doesn’t have long to figure out what I’m up to, because I rush back out and set my laptop up on the breakfast bar, then take a large drink of wine for courage. Sitting back on my stool, I begin hammering the keyboard, so hard there’s a possibility it might break.

“I have something I need to do.” After a couple of minutes of typing, I look over at Jess who’s standing watching me like a hawk and say, “Quick question: How set in stone is this month’s publication?”

She frowns. “It’s being approved by the powers that be. Why?”

“How would you like to revisit an old story, one that never made it to print?”

She smirks, beginning to understand where I’m going with this. “I could change a few things around.”

I beam at her, an action that feels alien after the past few months. “Great. Could you?”

She doesn’t ask any more questions. “I’ll go and do it now.” Before she leaves, she asks, “Why are you finally writing it?”

I continue typing while I reply, “I’m apologizing with a grand gesture. It’s the only way I know how to make him listen.”