“End the high school bullshit. He didn’t ask me personally to take your shit for the hell of it. I’m good at what I do, Izzy. Locke and Coop? Sure, they could do it, but I can do it better. Now, what the fuck?”
She closes her eyes for a few minutes before inhaling deeply. “Brandon, my ex . . . well, almost ex. We had a . . . challenging marriage. I left a little over two years ago and moved here. He’s been fighting the divorce.” Didn’t take much of a deduction to guess she was leaving something out—a whole lot of somethings.
“Let me ask you something, Izzy. How do you expect me to look into this, into him, without anything other than your telling me your perfect marriage didn’t work? What, did he cheat on you or something? Finally get enough of living the perfect little life? Tell me, because I just don’t get it. The little I was able to dig up this week makes it look like you had everything your little heart desired. And what I really don’t get—what I really don’t understand—is why he won’t just let you go.” Even to my own ears, that comes out harsher than I intended it to.
A little light on this situation would have been nice, because when she bursts into tears and runs off into the darken halls of my house, I am completely thrown. Shocked. What in the fucking hell? Grumbling like a fool, I take off to find her.
Almost thirty minutes later, I finally narrow the search. Really, it shouldn’t have been this much of a challenge since I have more empty rooms than furniture. This is what I get for buying a six-fucking-bedroom house I do not need. I look in every room on the main floor—nothing. I jog up the stairs and look in every room—nothing. I finally catch a break when I pass the bedroom next to the stairs—soft crying. I already checked this room and she wasn’t there. I use this room to store all my old case files. Being that all the other rooms except the one I sleep in are empty, she couldn’t have picked a better hiding spot.
I finally find her wedged between two big stacks of boxes. She has completely moused her way between them and turned into herself, legs pulled close to her chest and arms wrapped tightly around her body. She is rocking, fucking rocking, back and forth.
“Izzy, come out.” I try.
Nothing but soft cries.
“Come on now. Get out of there.” And try.
Silence.
“Really, Izzy, I’m too fucking big to crawl in there for you. Out.” And try.
I keep going for ten long-ass, frustrating minutes with no luck.
Enough of this shit. I start picking up the boxes around her, moving one at a time away from her small ball-like body. Once I have enough cleared that I can touch her, I reach my hand out to pull her up and out. I don’t expect her to throw herself back away from my outstretched hand. She has holed herself up so well that there isn’t much room between her head and the wall. She makes contract with a sick thud.
“Fuck,” I hiss out before scooping her up and carrying her down to my room. Flicking the lights on with my elbow, I walk over to the bed and place her gently down against the mattress before running my fingers through her hair.
Nice lump, stupid girl.
“All right, Izzy. Enough of this. Now we can add explaining what the hell that was to the list.”
My patience is shot, blown to fucking dust. My mood is deteriorating with every second, and she just looks at me with empty eyes. It’s like she isn’t even here with me. She just keeps roaming her eyes over my face. As pissed as I am right now, I can’t help but become sucked into her all over again. She looks so scared, but it’s the longing I see all over her face that has me transfixed. It’s like someone just kicked her puppy, killed her cat, and told her she wouldn’t get a pony for Christmas.
“Please, talk.”
She jumps at my hushed pleading. It takes her a minute and more of that heavy analyzing gaze before she speaks again. Her tone is dead; she sounds so small and defeated. Chills break out all over my body with her next words.
“It was so hard, Ax. So hard.” She looks away, focusing off into space instead of on me. “The first year was okay. He worked a lot but it wasn’t bad. He didn’t want me to work, said the only thing I needed to do was care for him, the house, and any . . . kids. What did I know? Stupid, broken Iz, what did I know? Huh?”