Needing Her by Molly McAdams Page B

kind of information. But it was a call much like the one I’d received after we’d finished going over the phone records. Different voice—this one actually had a number—and, unfortunately, he tried to keep the conversation going as he kept calling me Daddy. When I ran the number through the system, it came back as a pay phone, and I was left even more confused . . . and seriously fucking disturbed. But I was so drained, discouraged from the case, and pissed off for the victim and his family that I couldn’t muster the energy to want to figure out what was going on with the phone calls.
    When I got home, taped to my door was an envelope with the words “Bro, have you seen this? They’re everywhere!” scrawled across it. I pulled out the brightly colored paper as I looked up and down the hall for anyone who might have left the note, unfolded it, and did a double take when I saw my picture blown up on it. Across the top in large, bold writing was SWM LOOKING FOR SBM WHO WILL CALL ME DADDY. I F INTERESTED, CALL ME! S MOOCHES.
    Honest to God, below my picture was my cell number.
    Too far. Too far. Too fucking far. I wasn’t breathing, and the hall was spinning around me. My hand shot out in front of me to grip the frame of my door as I took deep breaths in and out until I felt like I could stay standing again.
    When I hadn’t been at work, or when I’d taken breaks to clear my head from the case, I’d been miserable thinking about how Maci and I still hadn’t talked. I hated thinking about her marrying that self-entitled douche, and yet, I still couldn’t make myself do anything about it, because I knew I should leave her alone. Cassidy had ruined me for half a year, and even she hadn’t consumed me like Maci was.
    I don’t know why everything suddenly changed between us, and I don’t know why I’d never noticed her. It’d been a week since she’d brought me out of the Cassidy-haze. And it didn’t matter that it’d only been a week, or that half that time had been us pissed at each other. Those seven days had somehow felt like years of torture as I kept myself from her. But then she goes and pulls this shit? I flipped through my keys until I found hers and stormed into her apartment, already yelling before I even found her back in her bedroom.
    “You’re messing with my career! Maci, don’t you get that? I’m a detective, people on the streets know me, there are a lot of law enforcement who will see that picture and know it’s me!”
    She sat up and a soft smile crossed her face briefly before she could hide it and give me a puzzled look. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    “I don’t have time for your bullshit!” I slapped the flyer down on her bed near her feet and alternated pointing between it and her. “Where did you put all of these? You need to go take them down! You really think this is funny?”
    That coy smile was back and she crossed her arms under her chest as she shrugged. “Actually, yeah, I did kind of think it was funny.”
    “You went too goddamn far today! I’m done dealing with your shit.”
    “Really . . . you’re done? Then why do you keep playing this game with me, huh?”
    I grabbed at the flyer and threw it toward her. “This isn’t a game, this is my life!”
    She threw her hands up before folding them under her chest again. “What the hell is with you tonight? The whole thing is a joke, I didn’t actually make a bunch of flyers! I just made the one; the two guys who called you are my friends. It was all just a joke! They’re the ones that helped me make it and put it on your door. You need to calm down, do you really think I would do something like that to you?”
    My chest moved up and down rapidly as I took quick, hard breaths through my nose. “Yeah, I do! Why the hell wouldn’t you do that? You’ve been a fucking pain in my ass for the last week . . . for most my life.” I closed my eyes, cracked my neck and shook my head before