Beauty & The Beast (Book 1)

58. Good at it

Vincent carefully walks up behind Alex, who is staring at the window of the loft, standing by his bed.
"Here," he hands her a cup of coffee.

"Thanks," she smiles and takes it from him. It was quiet. It was nice.

"Alex, uhm, I'm sorry I'm not the guy you fell in love with."

She keeps the smile on her face, actually meaning it when she says, "You're not a monster Vince." She touches his chest and he smiles.
"And I'm so sorry for what's been done to you," she shakes her head.

"I'm sorry you have to leave everything behind." It was a lot of apologising, but it was necessary.

She takes a moment, then she sighs. "You know, I've been thinking about that. Maybe it's not such a bad thing." He frowns a little because she was smiling at having to leave her life.
"Staying here, holding on to the life I'd lost ten years ago..." She pauses. "Maybe now I can finally let go of a couple of ghosts that have been following me around," she says with a content sigh.

Vincent nods. "Those two ghosts were great together once."

"Yeah," Alex's eyes let go of the tears they were holding and Vincent pulls her into a hug, closing his eyes, then he kisses her cheek and lets her go.
She smiles sadly at him and he nods again in goodbye.

Vincent turns around and walks out of his room, seeing Cat standing there. She looks over at Alex and Vincent blinks at her. Cat takes a deep breath and walks around him. He looks back once and then he leaves the two of them.

"Okay, you're gonna have to change buses in DeMoine, and again in Wichita," Cat hands Alex the bus tickets she took out of the brown envelope in her hands. "Here's your ID."

Alex looks at all of it, staring at her new identity and the tickets. She looks up guiltily at Cat. "After all I've done to you, I can't believe you'd go so far out of your way for me. I wish there was a way to repay you."

Cat smiles. "Just don't get yourself killed."

Alex chuckles and looks at the tickets again. Cat starts to leave but Alex stops her. "Catherine, I took care of Vincent for a long time, and I get that's your job now." She nods. "And you are good at it. Really, really good." Alex looks behind Cat to where Vincent walked. "I can see why he trusts you so much."

Cat smiles and shakes her head. "I think you're more sure of that than he is."

"What? Just because some ex fiancee turns up for a couple of weeks,  pretends to rock the boat?" Alex smirks.

"Alex, you were his first love."

Alex shrugs. "Everybody has a first love. Sometimes we outgrow them." She looks sad again, her eyes straying to the back once more. "He has."

Cat stares at her. "Why do you say that?"

"Because Vince always does the right thing. Like, making up for leaving me, even if his heart isn't in it. And because I'm not the one he loves."

*********

Cat decided to go to the precinct to do some cleanup after sending Alex to the bus station in a taxi.
Walking past rows of evidence boxes, she finds the one she's looking for and takes out the phone. She looks around before she open the call log and starts deleting. Then she takes out the notebook Tess had been looking at and rips out the page with Vincent's name, Muirfield and anything connected to it.

She hears footsteps just as she puts the page in her pocket. She freezes, her eyes widening. "Tess, hey, uh, I was just - "

"Don't." Tess shakes her head, walking toward Cat from the dark. "I really can't handle you lying to my face right now." She stares Cat down.