The Detective and Her Bachelor

Chapter 22

Steam sunk into the glass, coating the mirror in a thick foam of fog as the shower took up its nightly routine. The heat created an entirely new climate that clung to my hair, deflating its curls and sunk into my skin as I sat before the mirror, drawing theories across the glass. 

I ate meatloaf out of a Tupperware— one of the many meals Katherine had precooked for me— and her stockpile still took up most of my mini-fridge. 

And that delicious kindness allowed me to avoid the spectacle that was dinner in the mansion. I had no interest in sharing a table full of my paintball victims who took my victory as another reason to despise my existence. So instead, I took the chance to brainstorm in the bathroom, muttering theories to a grumpy Decker. 

"Shay is a very good shot," I said, scrawling her name across the glass. "Is there anything in her file about her firearm experience?"

I heard Decker shuffling papers through my earpiece. "Hmm... No. Nothing." He tapped his desk thoughtfully. "Maybe she is just a good paintballer." 

I drew a question mark next to Shay's name before I began doodling a Tiny Angry Decker across the bottom of the glass as was tradition at this point.

"I really don't like this Em character," Decker said with an edge to his voice. "She just shows up, tries to blackmail you and then you reward her bad behavior by giving her more information? Do you realize how psycho that sounds?"

I sighed. "Would you rather have her run the story?"

"I would rather handle her myself! That's why you have a team, Delle. You can't do everything alone. And every time you cut me out, something happens." 

"Nothing bad... technically happened—"

Decker scoffed, irritated with my response. 

"—And she's on our team... in a fragile... nonofficial capacity... that could change at any point. But for right now, she's busy chasing a lead for us." I hurried on before Decker could protest. "She's good Decker. She nailed me within twenty-four hours. She's valuable. She deals with this drama crap on a regular basis. Why not give her a shot."

"BECAUSE WE DON'T KNOW HER!"

"You gave me a shot, and you didn't know me when you did," I reminded him. 

Decker's anger vanished for a beat, both of us pulled back to a time when I wasn't twenty-four with a steady job. Instead, I was seventeen, having just met Decker days after I had lost my parents. I was a seventeen-year-old who had lied about her age to become a legal guardian to fifteen-year-old Allie and nine-year-old Misty so we could all stay together. 

I had gone from college student to breadwinner in one heartbreaking moment. From a sister to a makeshift parent who had no clue how to keep everything together. 

"That was different, Delle" Decker said softly, pulling me from my thoughts. "I wasn't undercover when we met." 

"I know..." I replied, swallowing past the painful memory. The feeling of grief so thick that it was hard to breathe as I tried to push away the feeling of loss long enough to find a job. The cold rain that night had found every dry part of me as I stood under the small lip of a building, listening to a private conversation that I shouldn't have been listening to. 

Even as I shivered, I could read the man's facial expressions as he lied to Decker a few feet away. And if I hadn't been so tired and hungry after a day of looking for work, I would have had enough common sense to keep my mouth shut and never would have told Decker that the man was lying to his face. I never would have started my career as a detective.