Ty and Sala read the big block letters:
BROKE DOWN. IN TOWN.
The three of them looked at one another. Charlie said, “Well, guys, better be safe than sorry, my mom always says. Hey, Chief, you okay? Looks like a false alarm. I’ll go find the truck driver, get him taken care of, okay?” He pulled out his cell. “I’ll give Paula and Doug a call, tell them false alarm and to go back home.”
Ty could only nod. She saw that Sala was holding himself stiffly, and he was quiet, too quiet. She took his arm. “Let’s go home, Sala, have a nice cup of tea. This little adventure might have put a white hair in my head.”
He nodded, but didn’t smile.
62
* * *
Ty found herself nearly mesmerized by the slap and glide of the windshield wipers, metronome steady. She’d laughed about Charlie’s call reporting he’d found the truck driver in the all-night diner on Route 37, drinking a Bud and full of apologies. She’d fallen silent, watching those windshield wipers.
Sala was staring straight ahead, sitting very still, like if he moved, he’d shatter. She opened her mouth but shut it. I saw this too many times in Afghanistan.
When he saw the construction truck sitting in the middle of the road, had he been thrown back into his horrific experiences there with ambushes? He’d reacted immediately. On top of what he’d gone through in Afghanistan, then being tied up and left to die in the closet at Gatewood, no wonder his mind went to the worst-case scenario. Was it automatic? Was it a form of PTSD?
The rain came down heavier, and Ty slowed her Silverado to a crawl. They drove through Willicott, deserted, very few lights on. She said, “Sorry, I didn’t even ask you if you would prefer to stay at your place in Washington.”
He didn’t look at her, simply kept staring out the windshield. “I wouldn’t.”
“Good. You want to know why I’m glad you’re with me? I like having you at my cottage to share my morning coffee, to eat my grilled cheese sandwiches with me at midnight. And when we’re lying in the dark waiting for sleep, I like talking with you about the important stuff and unimportant stuff, it doesn’t matter.
“You could have easily saved our lives tonight, Sala. The thick rain, the dark night, the huge truck in the middle of the road, it could have been an ambush. So it was a simple breakdown tonight, who cares? You took action, no dithering about, no questioning yourself. You acted. It was your vigilance in Afghanistan that saved your life. It could have saved our lives tonight.”
“I should have questioned myself. The whole thing was nuts—an ambush on a road in Willicott, Maryland? Not likely.”
“Do you forget we’re closing in on a murderer?”
He shrugged. At least he was talking. She wanted to tell him again she admired his brain, the way he could analyze another person quickly, come to a conclusion that was usually spot-on.
She flip-flopped her hand. “Believe me, what happened tonight was better than an ambush, but, Sala, if it had been the murderer out to kill us, you saved our bacon. You’re a hero.”
He shrugged.
She turned into her driveway, turned off the engine, and twisted in the front seat to look at him. “Sala, I’m no doctor, but it seems pretty obvious to me after what you went through in Afghanistan and then being left to die at Gatewood, what happened tonight is perfectly logical.”
“No, you’re not a doctor.”
She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. The rain poured down, a gray curtain enclosing them. “I guess what I’m saying is I’m very glad you were with me tonight.” She grabbed her umbrella. “You’re going to have to run, it’s the only one I have,” and she dashed out of the truck to her front porch, unlocked the door, and ran inside, Sala on her heels.
She could help him simply by being with him, sharing with him, distracting him, keeping him completely involved, which he was. She turned to him at the front door of her cottage and said simply, “I want you to stay with me for as long as you want.”
He started, then smiled down at her. “Thank you. Do you know, until you mentioned it, I hadn’t even thought about my place in Washington. I think my coffee might be as good as Savich’s, which means it’s lots better than yours. If you let me, I’ll prove it to you tomorrow morning.”
She laughed. “Okay, my Turkish sludge isn’t for everyone. You wait until you taste my hot chocolate this winter.”
This winter. That made her blink, but she realized she meant it.
She gave a momentary thought to his sleeping in the guest bedroom. She wasn’t about to tell him she wanted to keep an eye on him, that she worried about nightmares. Without discussion, they pulled the guest bedroom mattress into the middle of the living room and sheeted it. Because the rain had cooled the temperature, Ty got a couple of blankets. She changed into pajama boxers and a T-shirt with ONLY THE PITIFUL LIE TO A COP emblazoned on the front. Sala stripped down to a black T-shirt and his black boxer shorts. Before adjourning to the mattress, they went into the kitchen and stood staring out the window at the fog-shrouded lake and the flat black sky, like two old married people at the end of the day, with their jammies on, winding down in the dark night. And like two old married people, they set their cells into a charger, climbed under the covers on the mattress, and settled in. The sound of the rain was steady, soothing.
Sala said, “Tell me about your deputies.”
“Paula and Doug are both older, been on the force for over ten years, both mainly still on the job to make ends meet. They’re good with the locals since everyone knows them, and they get along with most. Knowing the two of them, they’re having a blast, even though the ending with the truck driver drinking a beer is anticlimactic. I know it’s hard to believe, but until now, Willicott hasn’t been what you’d call a big crime center.”
He laughed. “And Charlie Corsica?”