Every Second Counts

I searched Kris’s bedroom, trying to find my bra and underwear from the night before, but I had no idea where they had ended up in our rush to unclothe each other. I finally found my underwear hooked on the handle of his dresser on the other side of the room, and I decided to not even worry about my bra. I grabbed a pair of shorts from Kris’s drawer, not caring that they were going to be five sizes too big for me, but quickly throwing them on, knowing I needed to get clothes on as soon as possible, as his mother still sat in the living room.

I walked back towards the living room, only to overhear the conversation between Kris and his mother. “I just don’t understand why you would date someone like her,” Marilyn said, disgust evident in her voice. I stopped in the hallway, wondering what Kris was going to say to her.

“Mom,” he sighed.

“Kris, it’s obvious she’s not the type of girl for you,” Marilyn continued. “She’s probably only with you so she can sleep with you and then brag about sleeping with a professional hockey player. I mean, how much do you really know about her? She’s probably hoping you ask her to move in so she can live in this nice place.” I rolled my eyes at her assumption. She had no idea that I actually lived right below Kris in a condo that was set up identical to his.

I waited on Kris to say something to his mother, but the longer I stood there, the more evident it became that he wasn’t going to respond to his mother’s ridiculous accusations of me. I suddenly became angry at him for not defending me. Deciding not to stand there and endure any more of their conversation, I walked into the living room, making my presence known.

“Kris, I’m going to get out of here,” I told him, going directly to my coat that was still setting on the back of the couch from when I had arrived there the night before. “It was nice meeting you, Marilyn,” I said, walking towards the door. “I’ll talk to you later, Kris.”

“Wait!” Kris cried just as I had my hand on the doorknob, ready to leave. “I thought we were going to spend the day together,” he said.

“Maybe another day,” I said, glancing at his mother. “Besides, your mom came all this way to see you. Spend time with her.”

“Mara,” Kris began, but I shook my head, walking out the door, not wanting to argue with him over this. He appeared to have wanted the same thing, as he let me go, and I walked down the stairs to my apartment. The words that his mother had said about me kept repeating in my head, and I knew I couldn’t stay in my condo all day, dwelling on it. So, I quickly took a shower and got dressed, deciding to head into work.

As soon as I walked in the lab, I saw everyone stare at me. “I thought you were taking the day off,” Davis commented.

“Yep, that was the plan,” I said simply, sitting down and grabbing a pen, continuing the paperwork I had began the previous night.

“What happened?” Fiona asked, but I shook my head, not wanting to talk about it. “Sweetie, what happened?” she repeated, sitting down next to me. I should have known she wasn’t going to give up until I told her exactly what happened. She’d always been this persistent, which is exactly what made her such a good CSI. “Did you and Kris get into a fight?” she asked.

I shook my head while saying, “No.”

“Then why are you here right now and not having hot, hot sex with your hot boyfriend?” Fiona asked me, and Davis turned away from us, obviously not comfortable listening about me and my sex life.

“His mother came,” I stated, and Fiona’s eyes widened at the news. “Let’s just say, I didn’t make the best impression,” I added.

“What happened?” she asked fearfully.

“Oh, you know, I just answered the door wearing only Kris’s dress shirt, which barely covered my ass, while I wasn’t wearing any underwear, and my sex hair still intact,” I told her. “And, now she thinks I’m a whore who’s simply sleeping with Kris in order to have him invite me to live with him because she thinks I live in a shitty place.”

“Aww, sweetie!” Fiona said. “I’m sure she doesn’t hate you. Besides, her son is totally smitten with you. And, once she gets to know you, there’s no way she could ever hate you!”

“Her son didn’t even stick up for me,” I told her, and she looked at me curiously, obviously not understanding what I was saying. “His mom said all this stuff about me, and he didn’t say one word to defend me,” I clarified. Fiona continued to stare at me, and I couldn’t figure out what she was thinking. “What?” I asked her slowly.

“That just doesn’t seem like Kris at all. Maybe he said something after you left?” she suggested.

I shrugged my shoulders. “It doesn’t matter,” I said, shaking my head and looking down at the papers on the desk. “I’m just going to get some work done now,” I said, and she knew I didn’t want to talk about it any longer.

Two hours later, I was tapping my fingers on the table in front of me, staring at my phone, surprised that Kris hadn’t even called me. Sure, I’d told him to spend the day with his mother, but I didn’t think that he’d completely ignore me for the day. I thought for sure that he’d at least text me or something, but it didn’t appear that that was going to happen. His mother had probably already convinced him that I was a terrible girlfriend, and he was trying to figure out how to break up with me.

I rolled my eyes at my own ridiculous thoughts. My mind went back to Kris not defending me, and instead of being upset that he hadn’t called me, I turned angry at him for not standing up for me once again. Why hadn’t he stood up to his mother? Did he believe all those things she had said about me? Did he really think I was with him simply so I could brag that I was dating and sleeping with a Chicago Blackhawks player?

My thoughts were interrupted when the door to the crime lab flew open and Davis rushed inside. “Mara, Fi, we got a murder on the south side. You two feel like tagging along?” he asked, and both of us immediately jumped up, following him out the door.

When we arrived at the scene, the detective led us inside to the victim. My eyes immediately went to the woman in the middle of the living room floor, a large butcher knife driven right through her heart. I started to take pictures when I suddenly lowered the camera, taking a closer look at her. “Is that Jacqueline Swimmers?” I asked, recognizing her as one of the defense attorneys that worked in Chicago.

Fiona took a few steps closer to her and nodded her head. “That sure is,” she confirmed my thoughts. “I bet you she’s got a lot of people that could want her dead,” she commented, and I nodded my head in agreement. She had gotten numerous people off on different cases, and I was sure that there were many people that would want her dead because of that.

“Sad,” I said, continuing to take pictures. “She couldn’t be more than thirty-five,” I said.

Davis crouched down, finding her purse on the floor next to her, the contents scattered everywhere. He grabbed her wallet and opened it up to look at her driver’s license. “Thirty-three,” he stated, and I shook my head at how young she was.

We continued collecting evidence, when Fiona suddenly exclaimed, “Fingerprints on the knife! Maybe this won’t be such a hard case after all.”

“Let’s hope,” I said, going through the items that had fallen out of her purse, trying to see if there were any obvious missing items, but I couldn’t find anything. “It seems like everything’s here. No money’s taken, so it wasn’t like someone was trying to rob her,” I commented. “Anything over there, Davis?” I asked, glancing over at where he stood by the window, searching for any signs of someone breaking in.

“Nope,” he replied. “It doesn’t appear like this window was even opened, so they didn’t get through this way. And, there was no signs of forced entry around the door,” he continued.

“So, it’s either someone that she knew that she let into her apartment herself or it’s someone with a key. Didn’t she live alone, though?” I asked, trying to get all the facts.

“Yeah, she did,” Fiona said. “But, maybe a boyfriend or a family member had a spare key just in case?” she suggested. “But, I’d go more with the thought that she let the killer into her apartment, obviously not knowing they were there to kill her.”

“I agree,” I said, nodding my head.

“Well, let’s go back to the lab and see what we can come up with,” Davis suggested, and Fiona and I followed him back out to the car.

As I sat in the backseat, while Davis drove back to the crime lab, I pulled my phone out of my back pocket, checking to see if I had any missed calls. “Kris call you?” Fiona asked, and I shook my head. “Why don’t you just call him?” she asked.

“Because I’m mad at him,” I answered. “If he wants to talk to me, then he can call me.”

“You realize there’s a ninety-nine percent chance that he doesn’t even realize that you’re mad at him, right?” Fiona asked, turning her head around from the passenger’s seat so she could see me. “Men never realize when a woman’s mad at him,” she continued.

“While I hate to agree with her,” Davis began. “She is right. We never know when women are mad at us. What are you mad at him about anyways?” he asked. Obviously, he had tuned out that part of my conversation with Fiona earlier.

“His mom made an unexpected visit, and I made a really bad first impression. And, then she started talking all this trash about me, telling him that I was only with him so that I could brag about being with a Blackhawks player. And, Kris didn’t feel like it was necessary to defend me. Instead, he just stood there and listened to whatever she said about me,” I said, quickly recapping what had happened with Kris this morning.

“Fi’s right,” Davis said. “He probably doesn’t know you’re mad at him.”

“See, Kris probably doesn’t even know he’s done anything wrong,” Fiona said. “He’s never going to realize that you’re mad at him.”

“Oh, he’ll realize soon enough,” I told her. “Right when he realizes that I’m not calling him.”

“Mar, just call him,” Fiona said.

“Nope,” I shook my head. “He can call first,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest, wondering how long it really would take Kris to realize I was giving him the silent treatment.