Betrayed (Season Two)

EPISODE THREE

The Reason

How We Bleed...

Edmond watched his wife, every Thursday like clockwork, walk casually into the hotel lobby. His breathing quickens at the sight of her. Furiously, he gulps down the remainder of his coffee before crushing the paper cup into his fist, tossing the pieces out of the driver side window. We hardly talked much on Thursdays, but today he was extremely quiet, disturbingly still. I was getting to know Edmond better than I expected. The sex wasn't half bad either. I eyed him curiously as he drummed his thumbs along the steering wheel.

"It bothers you, doesn't it?" I asked, not expecting more than a grunt for an answer. Of course it bothered him. He wouldn't be human if it didn't and besides he's a man. His pride was being ripped away. Men aren't build for this. Women can go on for years loving a man that has been with a thousand different girls but a man... un huh. And how could a woman love a guy that would willingly allow another man to fuck her.  

"What does?" he replied, sounding agitated. He tried like hell to make his face appear more impassive. But Edmond would be a very bad poker player, he wore his heart on his sleeve and he kept his pride in his front jacket pocket.

"Knowing your wife is so willing to step out on you," I explained without heed. "And the fact that it's with a drug pusher. She's not only stepping out on you, but on your ki..."

"I would advise you to carefully choose the next words that come out of your mouth," he interrupted me, his tone terse. "Look, I know you mean well, but since I've hired a man to kill her I doubt I can sit back and take the high road. So let's try to leave my wife's motives out of this. She has her reasons and I have mine."

"All I'm saying is that I understand the feeling."

"Do you?" he asked darkly, "How so?"

I turned away from Edmond.

"You don't remember me do you," I stated boldly, coldly. It wasn't as much of a question as it was an omission. "First time we met, do you remember the very first time we really met?"

I looked over to him, timid but my gaze was firm.

He nodded, "Yea, it was my 3rd collar, The Peterson Case. You were lead prosecutor because Simmons got Ebola or something crazy like that."

He chanced a smile my way. I couldn't help but to laugh. I shook my head at him, "No... that was actually the second time we met. The first time we met, detective, was your rookie year on the force."

Without meaning too, Edmond's smile faded from his face as though I watched the process of a wound healing in fast, but slow motion.

"I remember how my blood tasted that night," I uttered, more to my knees than to him. "My ex-husband had just beaten me to the very last inch of my life. You have no idea the things that run through your mind in those moments. I don't really recall much, so you can imagine the images I clutched onto. I remember thinking my mother is going to feel embarrassed. Here I am, choking on my own blood and I'm worried about how my mother is going to feel. But every time these thoughts consume me I see you. And I remember laughing when my husband fell, eyes still open, dead at my shoulders."

Edmond, momentarily paralyzed, finally found the will to speak, "Hildegarde?" he shook his head, "Dominique Pearl Hildegarde. I killed your husband."

"Yes and now I'm Pearl Jenison," I told him, "So you do remember the name? You remember how broken I was? You remember the pieces, how I was scattered? You remember my blood?"

"You must understand," Edmond stammered wildly, "I had no choice. I... I got the call of a disturbance. I'm thinking I'm just gonna come in and break up a pissing match full he saids, she saids. But when I opened that door and I saw what he had done and what he was about to do. I told him to drop the knife. I figured you for dead away. When he came at me there was nothing that could be done. I remember how the bullet just went through him. A lot of sleepless nights after that."

"I don't blame you, detective" I assured him. "But I understand this pain, your pain, better than most. Love is only painful when the person you love hates you. Hate is only powerful when the person you hate is the person you love the most. So the question remains... does it bother you that she is fuckin' around?"

He took several deep breathes.

"Fuck yea it does," Edmond said peevishly. He shook his head with such vigor I feared he would break his own neck. "I mean with the photos and now this shit. I have every right to kill her."

"And what good would that do?"

"Me killing her was your fuckin idea," he bellowed. He had never hit me with such a piercing glare as the one he had now.  

"No," I corrected him. "That was the congresswoman's idea. There's more to those photos than you think. If you kill your wife now then you lose all your leverage. She knows this. She's actually banking on this outcome."

"What are you not telling me?"

I'm telling you," I began carefully, "if you kill your wife without finding out what she knows..."

"This is stupid," he grabbed my arm, "why didn't you just tell me this in the beginning before I let this motherfu...."

I looked down at his hand on my arm before I faced him. He released me as though he had been burned.

"What if I told you," I replied in a matter of fact tone, "that your oldest child was not your?"