The morning light saw the two agents speeding towards the community center where the environmental activist group held their meetings.
Tori sat in the passenger seat, shifting uncomfortably despite herself. She tried not to bring up their interaction in the gym the previous night, but it was clear that both of them were thinking about it. A cooler part of her mind suggested that clearing the air might be just the thing they needed, but she wasn’t even sure what she would’ve said about it. Tori's grip on her phone tightened, indecision making her jittery.
Javi’s focus was ostensibly on the road ahead, but after a few minutes of silence, his voice cut through the hum of the engine.
"Hey, Tori, about earlier in the gym—I was just messing around, you know?" His tone was casual, tinged with a note of forced cheerfulness, but the awkward glances he threw her way told a different story, each one seemingly hopeful for some sign of forgiveness or indication that Tori would be happy to laugh off the whole thing.
In a way, this was even worse than clearing the air. Maybe he was just trying to give her an excuse, a way to gracefully let him forget about the whole thing and write it off as a bad joke. But Tori didn’t believe it. And a part of her knew as soon as they introduced that lie into their relationship, it would fester. It would grow and rot until it infected whatever friendship they had between them.
But Tori didn’t say any of that. Instead, her chest tightened, and she nodded, looking out the passenger window as she spoke.
"Sure, Javi," she replied, her voice betraying none of the turmoil that churned inside her. "Let's not rehash it." She could almost feel the breeze against her cheek, the sort that hinted at changing weather patterns, the way this shift in their dynamic suggested unseen troubles ahead.
"Right, right," he said, though the words hung there, weighted with unsaid thoughts. He tried again, his voice reaching back to her as if across vast distances. "We all blow off steam sometimes, don't we?"
"Sometimes," Tori agreed, though she thought of storms and how they were nature's way of releasing pent-up energy, much like her own bottled-up emotions, ready to burst forth with the ferocity of a hurricane.
Her gaze drifted momentarily to the window, noting nothing but the blur of passing scenery—just shapes and colors without form. It was easier than looking at Javi or acknowledging the tension that sat as an unwelcome passenger in the car with them, as palpable as the faux leather of the seat beneath her.
She thought of Sammy, of the chaos that surged through their lives like a tempest, leaving her stranded in its wake.
"Look, I'm sorry if I crossed a line," Javi added after a moment, his voice dropping to something more sincere, a touch apologetic. His hands adjusted on the steering wheel, a visible sign of his discomfort.
"It's fine," Tori lied, wishing she could believe in the simplicity of those words.
She wasn’t even sure he wanted him to take it back. He’d been clear, hadn’t he? No, she thought. Not really… He’d been… flirting? Aggressive? Frustrated?
She wasn’t sure. It wasn’t the usual safe partner she was used to being around. He hadn’t been forceful or cruel in any way. Looking at it one way, he’d been playful… overly friendly? She wasn’t even sure what she was supposed to think of it all. Javi was handsome. She’d always thought so… but there’d been the boundary of professionalism. Plus, she’d only been on the job for two years, and one of the best ways to prematurely sever the career of someone rising through the ranks was to involve one’s self with a colleague.
What the hell was she even thinking? Involve? That’s not what had happened last night. But if she hadn’t walked away… No, she wasn’t even sure what had happened, but she had walked away. Again, her mind continued to strain and spin, and she turned to the window, trying to take the briefest of reprieves to process her feelings.
The landscape whizzed by in a blur of smudged greens and greys as Tori's gaze tried to latch onto anything but the strained silence enveloping the car. She watched a lone hawk circling above, its patterned flight a stark contrast to the chaos that swirled within her. The tranquility outside the window was a cruel joke to the turmoil gripping her chest.
Her phone erupted into a shrill ring, slicing through the quiet like a knife. Tori flinched, the sound jarring her from her reverie. Her heart hammered against her ribcage as she peered at the caller ID, her fingers tightening around the device. It was him. After everything, he was reaching out.
"Are you going to get that?" Javi asked, his words laced with an edge of concern that felt too heavy for the cramped space of the car.
Tori swallowed the lump in her throat, her pulse throbbing in her ears. The call could be about anything—mundane life updates, or worse, another patch of darkness from their shared past clawing its way back into the light. Each possibility held its own brand of dread.
"Hello?" Her voice was a mixture of wariness and unwilling intrigue as she pressed the phone to her ear. "Dad?" she added, her tone betraying the faint hope that maybe this time, things would be different, that perhaps they were both ready to unknot the tangled web of grief and misunderstanding that had ensnared them since Sammy's death.
A long, hesitant breath as if someone were preparing to walk on stage.
"Hey," Tori said, her voice threading through the silence that answered her tentative greeting. The word hung in the air, waiting to be caught and returned.
"Victoria," came the eventual reply from the other end, each syllable measured and heavy as if it had to push past a barrier of reluctance.
"Did you... get the mail I sent?" She ventured forth with a question, grasping at strands of normalcy. Small talk was foreign territory between them, a no-man's land where neither dared to tread too deeply.
"Got it," he replied, his voice flat like stones skipping across a still pond. "Thanks for the newspaper clippings."
"Thought you'd want to see the article about the park. They're finally renovating it—" Tori trailed off, unsure if this topic was safe or laced with unseen mines of memories better left buried.
"Good." His reply was terse, succinct, a verbal nod that offered no handhold for further conversation.
In the driver's seat, Javi's eyes flicked up to the rearview mirror, meeting hers for an instant before darting away. He was listening; she could feel it in the shift of his shoulders, the tilt of his head. Javi was as silent as her father, but his presence was a loud whisper against the backdrop of their strained dialogue.
"Work has been..." Tori started again, searching for something, anything, that might bridge the distance. But before she could finish the sentence, she sensed Javi's gaze once more, like a spotlight that made her skin prickle with awareness. She hesitated, censoring her thoughts, filtering her words through the sieve of his silent scrutiny.
"Busy," she settled on the word, a safe conclusion to an unfinished thought. "It's been busy."
"Uh-huh," her father grunted, a noncommittal sound that didn't invite elaboration. “I… didn’t mean to bother you or nothing.”
“No bother,” she said quickly.
She twisted a lock of white hair around her finger, feeling the weight of Sammy's absence, years of pain, in the hollow spaces between their words. She stared at nothing in particular outside the window, seeking refuge in the passing scenery. Each tree and streetlight was a fleeting distraction from the tension coiled inside the car, ready to spring.
"Anyway, I just wanted to—"
"Everything okay?" Javi interrupted, feigning casualness. His tone, though light, was tinged with an undercurrent of concern that only served to tighten the knot in Tori's stomach.
"Fine," she clipped out the lie, turning her face away from Javi's prying reflection, wishing she could also hide from the piercing discomfort of her father's remote responses. Her fingers clenched around the phone, a lifeline and a burden all at once.
"Alright, then." Javi's voice receded into a murmur, granting her the illusion of privacy once again.
But the seed of unease had taken root, leaving Tori acutely aware of every hesitant word she uttered, every breath she took, as if even the air between them was laced with the unsaid and the unknowable.
"Look, Dad," Tori began, her voice steadier than she felt, "I've been thinking a lot about what happened to Sammy and—"
"Therapy," her father's voice cut through, abrupt like the drop of an anchor in still waters. "I've started going to therapy. Just… just figured I should tell you."
The words hung in the air, leaving Tori adrift in a sea of shock. She had braced herself against a storm of blame that never came. Instead, here was an admission so bare it stripped her defenses.
"Therapy?" she echoed, the syllables foreign on her tongue.
"Yes." His response was a mere whisper, yet it thundered in her ears. "It's time I learn to forgive... myself."
"Yourself?" The question slipped out, unguarded. It never occurred to her that her father, the stoic pillar worn by years of silence and distance, would harbor guilt within his own heart. Guilt that perhaps mirrored the tumultuous waves crashing inside her own soul for years.
"Never thought I'd need it," he continued, his voice cracking like thin ice underfoot. "But carrying all this... it's heavy, Tori. Too heavy. I shoulda called you. I'm ashamed you're the one who first reached out." This was the most vulnerable her father had ever been with him, and it caused her chest to ache.
Her breath caught, a tempest paused in the eye of revelation. For so long, she had envisioned herself as the sole bearer of culpability for the gaping hole that Sammy's death had torn in their lives. Her fingers loosened around the phone; the grenade was no longer armed.
"Listen, Dad—" she tried again, but his sigh billowed through the line, a gust of wind that silenced her intent.
"No, let me finish," he interjected. "I blamed myself for not being there, not protecting him, not being... not being enough."
Tori swallowed hard, the truth lodging itself in her throat. How could she lay her own cards on the table, reveal her suspicions about Sammy's death, when her father was just beginning to navigate his path to absolution?
"Okay, Dad," she whispered, a lighthouse beam cutting through fog. "We don't have to talk about anything else today."
"Maybe another time," he said, and even through the digital connection, she could sense the weight lifting from his shoulders. “My… the shrink said I oughta tell someone. So… I am. I hate this.”
“Yeah… yeah, me too.”
“But… thanks. I gotta run. So,” he cleared his throat, “maybe we can talk another time?”
“Yeah… I’d like that. Another time," she agreed, locking away the secrets poised on her lips. She didn’t bring up her suspicions about Sammy’s death. There would be no revelations today, not until she could be certain. Unnecessary pain was a luxury they could not afford, not with the currents of grief still threatening to pull them under.
"Take care," her father said.
"Bye, Dad," she replied, ending the call with a silent promise to tread carefully on this newfound ground.
As the line went dead, the car's hum filled the void, and Tori sank back into her seat, enveloped in a cocoon of relief and confusion, the latter clinging to her like the chilling spray after a wave has crashed. Javi remained silent—distantly aware of the storm that had just passed, and of those still looming on the horizon, but thankfully, for now, letting her have this silence.
The car's tires crunched over the gravel as it rolled to a halt in the shadowed expanse of the community center parking lot. Tori's gaze lingered on the screen of her silent phone, the device now an artifact holding the remnants of a conversation that zigzagged between hope and heartache. She tucked it away, the cool glass leaving a final kiss against her palm—a goodbye to more than just her father.
"Take care," she murmured, though no one was on the other end to hear her now. The words were for herself, a whispered incantation to soothe the sting of old wounds that refused to heal completely.
The duo stepped out into the cool morning air, the transition immediate and stark. The world was awash with dusky light, painting everything in hues of orange from the rising sun. Tori scanned the perimeter of the community center, and her boots crunched on the fresh gravel as she strode away from the car, her silhouette cast long by the sun on the horizon.
With each step, the distance between her and Javi seemed to stretch like a chasm, the emotional gulf that had unexpectedly opened up between them feeling like a stone in her boot. She couldn't resist, and after a few steps, she glanced up at her partner's lean, handsome face.
Javi was walking beside her, and as she looked up, he seemed to abruptly look forward. He’d been looking at her first. Tori's heart tugged with a cocktail of regret and confusion. What once was an easy camaraderie now felt strained, their conversations like navigating a minefield. Could they ever bridge this divide, or would the remnants of their rapport be nothing more than memories?
She shook off the thought, the weight of the thoughts giving her step a slight sway. But fixing her gaze forward, Tori summoned a breath that filled her lungs with the crisp morning air. It steadied her, sharpened her focus.
This wasn’t about her or her relationship problems.
This was about finding a murderer, and this community center might hold the key link between three dead women and the person who took their lives.