Kismet

  Nicky James

  Kismet

  Copyright © 2025 by Nicky James

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Cover Artist:

  Natasha Snow Designs

  Cover Model

  Wander Aguiar Photography

  Editing:

  Keir Editing & Writing Services

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the author.

  Contents

  Note to Readers

  Chapter

  1. Dominique

  2. Kobe

  3. Dominique

  4. Kobe

  5. Dominique

  6. Dominique

  7. Kobe

  8. Dominique

  9. Kobe

  10. Kobe

  11. Kobe

  12. Dominique

  13. Dominique

  14. Kobe

  15. Kobe

  16. Kobe

  17. Kobe

  18. Dominique

  19. Kobe

  20. Kobe

  21. Dominique

  22. Kobe

  23. Kobe

  24. Kobe

  25. Dominique

  26. Kobe

  27. Dominique

  28. Kobe

  29. Dominique

  30. Kobe

  31. Dominique

  32. Kobe

  33. Kobe

  34. Dominique

  35. Kobe

  36. Kobe

  37. Dominique

  38. Kobe

  39. Kobe

  40. Kobe

  Afterward & Acknowledgments

  Need more romantic suspense?

  Dear Reader,

  More by Nicky James

  Note to Readers

  The case in this book surrounds potentially triggering topics.

  For a complete list of trigger warnings for this or any of my books, please visit my website.

  He who fights with monsters should see to it that he does not become a monster himself.

  -Friedrich Nietzsche-

  1

  Dominique

  Cosette skipped merrily along the uneven terrain, pigtails bouncing off her slender shoulders. Her incongruous joy, viewed against a backdrop of dying winter grass, low, slate gray clouds heavy with the promise of snow, and long rows of marble headstones stretching toward a distant corpse of trees, widened the hole in my chest.

  Every Sunday without fail.

  It shouldn’t be like this.

  But she needed to know about the mother she’d barely met.

  Cosette sang tunelessly, a ditty learned at Miss Heather’s, no doubt, as she aimed for the ashen flecked headstone in the distance. Twice she tripped in her winter boots but caught her balance and journeyed on. The chrysanthemums she’d chosen at the flower shop remained firmly clutched against her chest, stems and petals suffering under the careless hands of a toddler determined to keep them safe. She always picked chrysanthemums because the name had the word mum in it. Yellow because it was her favorite color.

  “Like dandelions, too, Papa?”

  “Oui, yellow like dandelions.”

  The wind howled, fluttering the ends of my open coat and numbing my cheeks. The bitter scent of melancholy tickled my nose. The shells of my ears ached. Misery was the long, stretching shadows chained to my ankles and hindering my every step.

  My sensibilities started and ended with ensuring Cosette was appropriately dressed for the weather while I suffered under the brisk assault of early winter, drawing my shoulders higher and wishing I was anywhere else.

  A squeal of delight pierced the mournful silence of the cemetery. Cosette turned, radiating glee as she pointed into the distance. “Elle est là, Papa. You see? Hurry.”

  She ran ahead, but I kept my steps even, in no rush to revisit the agony brought on by the onslaught of memories I suffered every time we visited. It wasn’t the same for Cosette. She had no recollection of the mother who had given her life. To her, Angelique was an idea no different than the characters in the books we read. She was a story. A fable.

  Hands buried deep in my coat pockets, I clutched my silent phone in a sweat-dampened palm, urging it to ring, to save me from this weekly nightmare. From the pain of remembering. I would rather confront death in an autopsy room than a cemetery, heartbroken over someone I loved who had been taken too soon. I was on call this weekend, but the phone remained inordinately soundless. Ottawa was a big enough city; it should not have been so.

  Under the sheltered boughs of an ancient weeping willow, Cosette stopped and dropped to her knees at Angelique’s final resting place. The yellow flowers tumbled over the brown winter grass at the base of the headstone, where a few crisp leaves had gathered. My brain struggled to process the contrast of both the cheery child and the bright blossoms in such a dreary, colorless place of death.

  I stopped several feet away. My misery stopped too, forever on my heels, never letting go.

  As always, Cosette hugged the granite marker in greeting and babbled as only a toddler, untouched by loss and grief, can do. “Hi, Maman. Je suis revenue. Did you miss me?”

  Carefully, cautiously, she lined up the yellow chrysanthemums along the top edge of the stone as she sang the same tune from before, nothing more than a repeated verse and bits of a chorus about an elephant on a spider’s web.

  When she finished, she took my hand and forced me closer. “Your turn, Papa. Put yours ici.”

  She always left a spot for the blossom I carried, so I laid it amid the vibrant yellow collection as instructed.

  Crouching, I wrapped an arm around Cosette and tucked her against my side. “Are you going to tell her about the new house?”

  “Oui! We have a new house, Maman. In…” Cosette’s brow crinkled. “What’s the name, Papa?”

  “In Ottawa.”

  “In Ottawa,” she repeated. It came out Ahwahwah. I didn’t correct her. “I go to a new school with Miss Heather.” To me, she asked, “Je peux tu chanter?”

  “Of course. Sing to your heart’s content, ma belle. I think Maman would like that.”

  So she sang. Most lyrics were jumbled. Some were in French and others were in English. At times, they came out in a combination of both languages. Cosette clapped and did the actions. At one point, she peeled free from my side to dance, a bum wiggle that melted my heart and blurred my vision.

  As she performed, I grieved, wanting to close my eyes yet never wanting to look away. This child. Her innocence. Her purity. She brought me such comfort, yet boundless pain. A precious porcelain doll with perpetually rosy cheeks, chestnut brown ringlets, wide brown eyes, and a cupid bow mouth. So like her mother, I ached with the unfairness.

  Two and a half years. Time slipped irrevocably away as it is wont to do. First, days and weeks. Then, months and years. People moved on with their lives. They forgot. Those of us who suffered the most were always left behind. I desperately clung to the past, wishing for something that could never be. Day by day, the crushing weight of time stole my humanity until I wasn’t sure I recognized the man in the mirror any longer.

  Cosette finished her song and dance and sat cross-legged on her mother’s grave, facing the stone as she traced the letters of Angelique’s name.

  Unwilling to remain a wispy shadow in this verbose child’s life, I approached, kneeling on the frozen ground behind her and kissing her cheek. “Tell Papa the letters. Do you remember?”

  “Oui.” Despite being two-and-a-half, Cosette knew most of them. She was advanced for her age, talking in full sentences at eighteen months, recognizing letters by her second birthday. We did this weekly. She took my hand and guided my blunt fingertip along the lines and curves of Angelique’s name as she recited in a mixture of French and English, still unable to untangle the two languages. A, N, G, E, and so on and so forth. Cosette absorbed everything, soaking up every detail of her growing world.

  When she finished, she stood and moved into the pocket of my arms, leaning her tiny body against me as I remained at her level, cradling her against my chest, absorbing her minimal weight and sweet syrupy scent—always pancakes for breakfast on Sundays.

  “Did Maman sing?”

  “She did. All the time, and she had a beautiful voice.”

  “Was she pretty?”

  “Gorgeous. The most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

  “Like me?”

  A watery smile tugged at my lips, and I kissed Cosette’s cold, rosy cheek as the lump in my throat strained my words. “Oui, just like you, ma belle.”

  “And she’s an angel now, like her name.” She used the French pronunciation of angel.

  “Oui.”

  “And she liked dandelions, too, but not the yellow ones.” Facts, not questions. Cosette knew these answers because we discussed them at every visit.

  “That’s right.”

  “Like the picture on your skin.”

  “Like my tattoo.”

  Cosette puckered her strawberry lips, and I knew what was coming.

  “Pourquoi, Papa?”

  Why? Always Why? The one question that deserved an answer, but it was an answer I didn’t have. Why did she have to die? Why her? “She was very sick.”

  “And the sick made her die?”


/>   “Yes.”

  “And the doctor couldn’t fix her?”

  “Non, ma belle.”

  Cosette turned in my arms and squished my cheeks between her icy fingers. “En anglais, Papa.”

  I chuckled. “The doctor couldn’t fix her, and you forgot your mittens in the car, munchkin. Your hands are freezing.”

  I curled my much larger ones around hers and brought them to my mouth, breathing hot air into a small opening between my thumbs. Cosette giggled and told me it tickled.

  “How about you find Maman some treasures while I talk to her for a bit?”

  “Okay.”

  Cosette bounded off among the rows of headstones, gaze fixed on the ground. A curious magpie in search of shiny objects. Her pockets were always full of one thing or another. She often collected acorns, bubble gum wrappers, shapely rocks, or bottle caps. To her, they were riches and gems to be hoarded. Once, she found someone’s lost brooch.

  This past summer, Cosette had learned of her mother’s love for dandelions. Collecting them, she marked her chin and cheeks yellow. Bouquets of those precious weeds sat in a cup of water on the kitchen table for weeks. When they went to seed, she blew on them, making wishes.

  Cosette never wandered far, always mindful of my presence. Once she was out of earshot, I faced Angelique’s memorial. In truth, I had no words left. Nothing would bring her back. Nothing would change the past.

  I crouched and straightened Cosette’s flowers so they didn’t fall off the rounded top of the headstone.

  “She’s a ball of energy, growing more every day. I can barely keep up sometimes. She sings with the same freedom and inhibition you used to have. Not sure she carries a tune as well, but she’s young.”

  Angelique had once filled my days with music. She had a passion for musicals and sang all the scores, knew every part. No matter the role, male or female, her contralto rang with a clear vibrance and power that was meant for the stage but was wasted daily in the shower or kitchen.

  In fact, Cosette was named after the young girl in Les Misérables. It had been Angelique’s final request. Call her Cosette. So, with a broken heart and the horrific image of Fantine dying in a hospital as she begged Valjean to care for her daughter, I named the baby Cosette. How could I refuse such a request?

  The wind rustled the sagging branches on the weeping willow, sending them swaying and sweeping the ground. Cosette returned and placed several rocks and twigs among the chrysanthemums, arranging them just so. She had found a blue jay feather but seemed reluctant to give it up. Clutching the shaft, she delicately ran her finger along the vane with a quiet introspection unsuitable to a toddler. I often wondered where her mind strayed.

  “You can keep it.”

  Smiling, she tucked it into her coat pocket. An instant later, she seemed to think better of it and removed the feather, placing it beside my flower. “C’est pour Maman.”

  Cosette took my hand. “Tell me a story.”

  As I scavenged through memories, seeking a pleasant time from the past that was worth sharing, my pocket vibrated. Relief I didn’t deserve flooded my system, followed by guilt and shame.

  I tugged the device from my jacket and checked the screen.

  Work.

  Finally. The escape I’d been waiting for.

  2

  Kobe

  I collapsed on the couch with a groan. “I’ve never been more grateful to have a day off in my life. Please run my phone over with your car so it never rings again.”

  Elifet chuckled as he aimed for the kitchen. “You should know better than to say that shit out loud. Do you want a beer? I didn’t get snacks, but I figured we could order pizza at halftime.”

  “Beer would be great.” I dug the TV remote out from under a mess of debris on the coffee table and flicked through the channels until I landed on the Cincinnati Buffalo game I’d been waiting for all week. As a detective with the Ottawa Police Department, I rarely saw two days off in a row. My partner, Rue Hayashi, and I had managed to clear up a handful of backlogged cases, giving us a rare moment to breathe.

  Although our houses mirrored one another, Elifet lived a more extravagant lifestyle with a big screen TV, soft leather couches, a full bedroom set, and carefully selected accessories that seemed frivolous and unnecessary to my more minimalistic existence. It was why Sunday afternoon football happened at his place more often than not, despite us being next-door neighbors.

  In twelve minutes and eleven seconds—according to the time ticker at the top of the screen—my friendship with Elifet would turn caustic. The expected rivalry would last approximately three hours—pending overtime—before we reverted to our comfortable, good-natured camaraderie. The contention worsened when our favorite teams played one another, and I’d been a hardcore Buffalo fan since I was old enough to understand football.

  Elifet didn’t have a preferred team, per se, but he rooted for anyone who wasn’t Buffalo, to spite me, no doubt, but it was all good fun. No one walked away with hurt feelings. Our jobs kept us busy, so we treasured the rare times we were able to hang out.

  Elifet returned with two sweating bottles of beer and handed me one before collapsing on the couch, close enough that our knees knocked. The compression of cushions brought our shoulders together, and Elifet swung an arm around me, casual as always.

  “Hey, Moonpie. Looking mighty fine in an oversized hoodie and joggers.”

  “Fuck you. Some of us dress for the weather. Besides, I thought we were watching the game. Get off me.” I playfully shoved him, but he refused to budge.

  “I can think of better things to do than watching your shitty-ass team play.”

  “Are you smack-talking already?” I quirked a brow, elbowing him harder. “That will get you nowhere.”

  Elifet laughed, ruffled my unruly shag of hair, and shuffled to the other side of the couch. “Suit yourself, Buffalo. The offer is null later.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  Elifet chuckled. The man was a panther, long and lean with honed musculature he liked to flaunt by wearing the least amount of clothes he could get away with, even in the colder months. He was of mixed Haitian and British heritage with warm brown skin and coiled black hair that he wore several inches long. It gave him a playful edge that only complemented his vibrant smile.

  Although Elifet’s family had emigrated from London when he was eight, he still clung to a mild accent, laying it on thicker when he thought it might work to his advantage—particularly when he was trying to pick up at the bars. People were oddly attracted to sexy men with accents. I pretended to be immune.

  In nothing but loose basketball shorts, Elifet stretched out, setting his bare feet on the coffee table and draping an arm along the back of the couch. Relaxed and carefree, he carried quiet strength and confidence that I envied. He had the perfect job and the perfect family, both things I lacked. As an extrovert, Elifet was sure of himself and never gave a fuck what other people thought.

  I longed for his poise and sureness.

  Living under constant microscopic inspection from my boss and partner, I tended to spend half my days biting my tongue while trying and failing to shape myself into something I wasn’t.

  The expected jibing began with kickoff, and I reached for my beer, grinning and shaking my head at my best friend and neighbor as he insulted every aspect of Buffalo’s plays, criticizing players, coaches, and every single penalty.

  I had barely swallowed my first sip of beer when the inevitable happened. My phone, which never made it under the wheel of Elifet’s car, rang. With its shrill cry—a ringtone I’d set specifically to warn about calls from work—my pleasant Sunday afternoon plans evaporated.

  Tossing my head back, I groaned. “Fuck me. For real?”

  “You said no, remember. I offered.”

  I threw a pillow at his face, and he laughed, singing, “Should have kept your mouth shut.”

  Setting the beer on the coffee table, I grabbed my phone and connected the call with a terse, “Yeah.”

  “We’ve got a body. Rideau River Nature Trail near the access off Telmon Street. I’ll text you the exact coordinates. Hayashi will meet you there. Forensics is already processing the scene.”

  Staff Sergeant Olivia Golding never beat around the bush. Her detached manner and sharp tongue made her hard to like, but she was good at her job. My partner thought I took Golding’s attitude too personally, but my boss wasn’t my biggest fan. She went out of her way to criticize everything I did and every decision I made.