Beauty & The Beast (Book 1)

45. Handler

Cat was close enough to Alex's apartment to see her being attacked by a man. And obviously Vincent wasn't with her at present, or that never would have happened.
The man was speaking into Alex's ear and Cat shot a round off behind them. The man looked at her and she tried to run forward when he took off.
"Sto - " A stinging pain in her side cut her off and she gasped, falling against the wall, blinking and trying to see what direction the attacker went in.

Alex turned and saw Cat there, still pointing her gun and ran over to help, taking her up to her apartment.

"I don't even know how to thank you," Alex smiled, redressing Cat's shoulder. It had come loose while she was running or limping over the street where the taxi dropped her off.
"How did you know I'd be in trouble?" Alex asks. Cat grunts from the pain a little.

"I didn't, I was just...stopping by to say thank you for the great healthcare."

"Or maybe you started keeping tabs on me? Because of Vince?"
Cat frowns. Vince? Alex smiles. "With him coming to see me, I mean." She closes the first aid kit, missing Cat's worried expression. He actually talked to her? "It's okay," Alex assures her, looking over and seeing Cat's furrowed brow. "Vince told me everything. Obviously that's just...that's what you do when you're somebody's handler."

Handler? Since when was she part of a drug rehabilitation program? She wasn't a sponsor or a handler. Clearly Vincent had to tell her something, but that she was a handler? No one close like a friend even? And why did he have to tell her anything? 
Alex pops out two painkillers and hands Cat the water too.

"Alex, who was that guy?" Cat drinks the pills. She could push the rest off for now.

"I've never seen him before, but he seemed to know me. He said he'd been thinking about doing this for years," Alex shakes her head in confusion. "Detective Chandler, he might be the person who's been watching me," she says carefully. Cat nods. She's not supposed to know.
"I had a break in a few weeks ago."

"Oh, really? Did they take anything?"

"No. It was weird, I think whoever it was just went through my closet..?"

Cat asked Alex if it was possible for her to take a look and Alex agreed. She left Cat alone in her bedroom to do her job, waiting in the kitchen and making coffee.
Cat palmed through Alex's clothes hanging on the side, pulled out a few drawers and storage boxes.
On one of the racks, she finds a box with a bunch of papers and letters and she takes it out, placing it on the small side table outside the closet.

Looking through the opened envelopes, Cat sees that they were all from Specialist Vincent Keller. There were close to a hundred of them...

"Do you take creamer Cat?" Alex calls.

"Oh, uh no! Just black thanks!" Cat turns back to the letters. Stuffed between them are photos too. She takes one out and she smiles at the adorable photo of Vincent sitting on a beach, taking a selfie, smiling happily.
His dimples were out. She hasn't seen him smile like that ever, except at the wedding. He had been happy then?

She puts the photo to the side to keep looking. Another photo had Vincent and Alex in medical scrubs, his arm arounf her shoulders; another of them smiling at the camera; another of her kissing his cheek and him grinning... Cat stops looking through the photos, her lip already starting to quiver.
Moving on to the letters again she took out another. She unfold it and reads, thinking to herself that she should have stopped at the first photo she found of Vincent when words like,
'our wedding', 'fiance' and 'i love you'
jump out. Cat blinks the tears away, looking at the ceiling.
Vincent lied to her? He said they were close, she thought he meant close friends, not engaged to be married before he left. Did that mean now that he was alive they were going to -
Cat shakes her head, and wipes her eyes just as a knock comes from the hallway at the front door.