Laura said the best things, things about how she’d wanted me from the minute she saw me again and that I felt so good, that I kissed her just right. I knew she fit me, our mouths coming together like it was natural. There was no awkward turning my head the wrong way or bumping noses, just a fiery kiss that went on and on until it stole my ability to think or even to breathe.
“Not here,” she whispered against my lips.
I had reared back. I looked down at her, at how her auburn hair was all around her shoulders and her lips were reddened and bruised from my kiss. She looked debauched, like those girls who crawl sheepishly out of backseats when a cop beat on a fogged-up window out where the teenagers park on Saturday nights. Her throat and chest flushed and her eyes feverish and glassy. Like she’d been drugged, but the drug was me, my touch and my kiss. I’d come way too close to using her, to having her up against the wall, wild and reckless. I stepped back, withdrawing my leg from between hers, letting her out of my arms. It felt terrible to let her out of my arms. It felt wrong, like everything in my body screamed for me to keep going. But my will wouldn’t allow it.
I was supposed to be an honorable man. I did not maul my deputies in back hallways or consider if they’d let me unbutton their uniforms. I recoiled across the width of the hallway from her and straightened my shirt and hair. She started fumbling around with her uniform, seemed helpless to fix it so it looked remotely normal. It would have looked to an outsider like she was the one who had a couple beers, and I was the one dead sober, when the reverse was true. In the end, I helped her. I fixed a button that had come loose, tucked her hair behind her ears since it had tumbled over her shoulders, and straightened her collar. I did all this with my lips pressed tight together and the resignation of a man being marched to his execution.
After I had repaired her appearance which I had been the one to dishevel, I stepped back from her. One touch would be poison, would be a surge of ecstasy that burned up the rest of my shaky resolve. We walked to the squad car and she slid in the driver’s seat. I stared out the window all the way there. Neither of us said a single word until she pulled into the station.
“I apologize,” I said, half mumbling it. She didn’t acknowledge that I’d spoken. She just tossed the keys in the seat, got out and took off in her own car. I felt like a heel, like some creep who had groped her in a bar when she had been innocently coming out of the ladies room.
When I woke up and remembered all that, I swore. I couldn’t believe I’d screwed up so badly. I sat on the edge of the bed trying to get my head together so I could talk to her. The only thing that would make this worse and more awkward was pretending it hadn’t happened. I’d take full responsibility. I’d partner her up with Carl immediately and only see her at staff meetings. No more late-night burgers in my office, no more long talks on a patrol drive. I’d give her up, was what it felt like. Although she was hardly mine to let go. My chest hurt, part shame and part regret. Because for the last week or so, I’d been pretty damn happy. I had a puzzling case to challenge me and a new partner to challenge me, one that made me feel more alive than I’d been in years.
My phone rang. I knew Bobby’s number and answered it.
“We got a break, Brody,” he said. “A girl in Overton disappeared too. The same burner phone number was used with her, too. Her phone was in her car, but the last call had come from the same number.”
“I’ll be right down,” I said.
I got ready in a hurry and raced to the station. Bobby and Laura were in the break room and Carl was coming in with some muffins from the bakery. Mrs. Rook passed out cups of coffee. I avoided Laura’s eyes and took my seat so we could hear Bobby’s briefing.
“My brother-in-law is a cop in Overton, and he gave me a call this morning. They have a missing girl, disappeared around midnight, three days after Becky. When they checked out her car, her purse and phone were still there, and I asked him if he could run a number for me. I gave him the ID from the burner phone in our case, and it showed up on her phone. Lacy Carnes, sixteen, blonde, good kid like the Simms girl.”