Free The Scent of Shadows Free with Bonus Material by Vicki Pettersson Page B

“Is that why you like being a cop?”
    He stopped chewing, looking thoughtful for a moment. “I’m not sure I do like being a cop.” And even he looked surprised at the admission.
    “Then why do it?”
    “I have to. It’s a compulsion. A calling.”
    “An obsession?” I asked warily.
    He looked at me. “Yes.”
    I hesitated. This was fragile territory again. “Because of what happened to me?”
    He blinked, but his expression didn’t change. I guess he figured if I could speak about it so openly, he could as well.“And because I can’t just live a comfortable life on the sidelines while horrible things happen to people who can’t protect themselves.”
    I just stared at him, determined to say nothing until he answered my question.
    He shrugged again, but there was a tremor, a visible fury, beneath the movement this time. “What do you want me to say, Jo? Yes, what happened to you, to us, marked me. It changed the way I viewed the world. How could it not?”
    I found I couldn’t meet his eye. “But how can you let it still affect you?”
    Ben circled the question like a tiger, coming at me from another direction. “What about your career, then? The photographer who captures the truth but remains safely on the other side of the lens. Nobody and nothing touches you, is that right?”
    I folded my arms over my chest. That wasn’t right at all. My photography was good and relevant. Granted, Xavier’s criticism about not making money at it was almost true, but my photos had been heralded for their clear and unflinching look at Vegas’s most forgotten streets. When I snapped a photo, I leeched the neon from the scene, and what remained was even more startling for its stark simplicity. People lived on these streets. Teens were corralled into prostitution on these corners. There was a great deal more lost out there every day than in all the glittering casinos combined. I wanted people to recognize and think about that.
    “We all become who we need to in order to survive,” I said stiffly.
    “And who have you become, Joanna? A warrior? Some superwoman bent on vengeance who needs no one and nothing?”
    Strange choice of words, I thought, pursing my lips. “Criticizing?”
    “Simply asking.” But we both knew there was nothing simple about it.
    “I was changed too, Ben,” I said, taking up the offense.“When someone holds out their hand to me I don’t grab it readily. I’m always on the lookout for the fist behind their back.” My eyes automatically traveled to the lone man sitting at the bar.
    “Most women don’t think that way.”
    “Yeah, and I envy those women. I even remember, vaguely, what it was to be one of them.” I leaned back in my chair and blew out a long breath, aware that I sounded way too bitter to be just twenty-five. “But more than envy them, Ben, I fear for them. I especially fear for the ones who will become like me.”
    We used our waiter’s return with the food and the wine as an excuse not to talk, but when we were alone again, Ben said, “There’s no one like you, Jo.”
    I rammed my fork into my pasta. “Don’t try and sweet-talk me now. You’ve pissed me off.”
    He smiled and I wished he wouldn’t. I felt myself toeing that precipice again. Tumble, tumble, tumble. It made me want to push him away and run from the room, screaming. It made me want to draw him near and into my bed, sighing. I had more practice with the former, so I pushed.
    “The knowledge of violence is my playmate, Ben,” I said, twirling angel hair around my fork. “I bed down with it in the evening and wake with it again in the morning. That’s never going to change.”
    “I know about violence, Jo. Seeing what I see every day on the job…” He shook his head, poured wine into our glasses, and took a sip, his eyes growing dark. “It’s enough to make me want to head out onto the streets with you instead.”
    I drew back. “But that’s—” Not what I’m doing , I wanted to