“I stand corrected.”
She turned the corners of her lips up, a polite gesture, then her face fell back to its normal position…blank, empty, haunting. She could sense Mark wanted to say something, but her closed-off expression warned him against it. They had shared their suffering, but nothing more. She willingly gave him her body, but not her heart. Not her soul. Never again.
“I get it’s a difficult day for you, tomorrow being the anniversary of…” Mark trailed off, his voice consoling, laying his hand on her thigh.
She shot her eyes to him. In all the weeks they tried to dull the pain by finding solace in each other’s arms, he had never touched her in public, apart from the occasional hug during the group meeting.
“I’m fine,” she barked, pulling her leg away.
Mark sighed, running his large hand through his rugged, dark hair. “If you say so.” He paused. “It’s okay to feel vulnerable, ya know.”
Rayne scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Stop with the psycho-babble bullshit. I hear enough of that from the guy who runs this meeting. I don’t need it from you, too.”
“Then why do you come here?”
Staring at the ceiling, the light panels in serious need of a good scrubbing, she closed her eyes, letting out a long breath. “To be with people who understand me, Mark. That’s all. No one else does. But here, I feel like I belong, something I haven’t felt since…” She trailed off.
In a bold move, Mark reached out and grabbed her hand, comforting her. For once, she didn’t pull back. She let his warmth surround her. Hell, maybe he needed it as much as she did.
She stared into his eyes, a jolt running through her at the unexpected tenderness she saw there. Emotions weren’t part of their arrangement. They had both loved and lost. Each knew the pain that accompanied such loss. It was foolish to willingly put yourself in that position again.
“I think we’re ready to begin,” a soothing voice announced, breaking their connection.
Mark cleared his throat, releasing his grasp on Rayne’s hand as she readjusted herself, unbuttoning her jacket now that the warmth of the indoor heating had fought off the chill that had enveloped her when she first arrived.
The facilitator went through the typical motions of talking about grief, why they were all there, and that it was perfectly normal and healthy to mourn the loss of a loved one.
Too bad I don’t feel normal, Rayne thought to herself.
Tomorrow would mark the one year anniversary of the day she lost her fiancé. They said each day would get better, that she’d think about him a little less, that she’d move on, but she hadn’t. Talking about it didn’t help anymore. She didn’t know if anything would.
“The death of a loved one can be a life-altering event,” the facilitator continued in the same pacifying tone that once brought Rayne comfort. Tonight, though, it only reminded her she still hadn’t moved on from her loss. “While some of you may have initially felt grateful your loved one was no longer suffering, especially if you lost someone due to disease or old age, others may not have been ready for such a devastating event. Perhaps you lost a child.”
He looked around the room. Many of the attendees had their heads lowered, trying to hide their tears. Sniffles echoed against the dusty linoleum, followed by the occasional sob.
“Perhaps the death was sudden or unexpected. Regardless of the circumstances, everyone in this room has felt the anguish of losing a loved one. You’re all here to cope with what has become your new normal. It may not seem like it now, but you will soon begin to live again. Isn’t that what your loved ones would have wanted?”
He made it sound so easy, like they would all forget their loss one day, the pain a distant memory. Maybe it was like that for some people, but for Rayne, her loss was too great. It wasn’t just her fiancé she lost a year ago. It was her way of life.
A life she would do anything to get back.
Chapter Two
December 18
3:15 AM
THE SOUND OF A pair of Salvatore Ferragamo wingtips echoed on the pavement as Alexander Burnham strode toward a rundown warehouse on the channel in South Boston…or, as locals called it, Southie. Glancing over his shoulder at his nondescript company SUV, he cocked his pistol, never knowing what kind of trouble would find him in this neighborhood.
A streetlamp flickered against the dark, rain-slickened pavement. The storm had taken a break, but the ominous clouds gave notice that it was just a short reprieve. Soon, the heavens would open up again, soaking the city with a layer of rain and perhaps ice as the temperatures plummeted. But now, just past three in the morning, the ground was still too warm.
An unexpected clanging of a metal object falling to the ground echoed through the night. Alexander surveyed his surroundings, searching for anything that struck him as suspicious. Everything about the area made his gut shout at him to go back to his car, that there was something disturbing going on. It wasn’t just the rundown location, the dismal weather, or the abhorrent stench of rotten fish in the air. He sensed the reason for his brother-in-law’s phone call in the middle of the night was not to tell him he would finally retire from the police force to come work for the private security firm Alexander ran with his brother, Tyler, since leaving the navy over fifteen years ago. Detective David Wilder had to have a damn good reason for pulling him out of his comfortable bed and away from his beautiful wife of nearly ten years.
It didn’t help that Dave was a homicide detective with more years on the job than he cared to discuss. This only added to Alexander’s unease and curiosity.
Walking along the perimeter of the warehouse, the air grew thick, the smell of fish and saltwater becoming stronger. Alexander had to fight back his gag reflex. Having grown up on the Connecticut shoreline, then spending the better part of a decade in the navy, he had lived most of his life by the ocean. Still, no amount of time spent near the water could make him ambivalent to the putrid funk of a fishing warehouse. As he covered his nose with a monogrammed handkerchief, all he could think was this was the perfect place to dump a body. The stench was so foul, a corpse would go undiscovered for days, weeks, maybe even months.
With each step he took, he considered several scenarios about why Dave needed to see him, each one worse than the previous. Alexander’s line of work put him in contact with some of the most vile scum who would stop at nothing to harm the most vulnerable people. Mistakes could mean the difference between life and death. Lately, he’d thought more and more about the mistakes he had made and whether he could have done something to prevent them.