I breathed a sigh of relief that she wasn’t standing so close anymore, but I also felt a pang of disappointment at having distance between us. It was confusing and I shifted in my chair, aggravated. I straightened up, realizing I’d leaned away from her in my chair awkwardly while she was beside me.
“We have our first solid evidence that Becky wasn’t alone. She could still be a runaway, but it seems less likely because she doesn’t seem like she’d ditch her phone. I can understand turning off the location setting, but we live in a day and age when it’s not safe to be without a cell phone especially if you’re far from home.”
“When you say ‘in a day and age’ you sound about seventy-five years old, Chief. I have to ask. Do you realize we’re not in Mayberry?”
“Very funny. If we’re in Mayberry, you’re Opie.”
“Uh, hello? I’m a woman.”
“Which makes you Aunt Bee.”
“Shut it Peters,” she shot back good-naturedly. Then she added, “there’s no one and no place on this planet as wholesome as Mayberry and it’s townsfolk.”
“Ouch. Cynical much?” I said.
“Yeah. Aren’t cops usually cynical unless they’re stupid?” she asked with a shrug. “We see way too much of the bad to think the best of people.”
“I see your point there, Vance, but I wouldn’t still be in law enforcement if I believed that. If I thought everybody was basically an asshole, I wouldn’t work so hard protecting them,” I told her. I waited for her to make a joke, to laugh at me for putting it so baldly, that I had seen the worst, but I’d seen the best in people, too.
She shocked me by not snapping back. There was no smartass remark, no laugh. She just looked up and met my eyes.
“Tell me why,” she said, her voice quieter, less brash than I’d ever heard her.
“Because my wife died, Vance. And when a woman’s dying, you find out how many people have a heart for mercy. So many people came to see her and cooked food and brought flowers while she was sick, and the whole damn elementary school made her get well soon cards with yellow all over ‘em because the principal had called and asked what her favorite color was. When she couldn’t fight anymore, every man on this force came to my house and stayed the night, and the next night too. So I wasn’t by myself. Tough guys, men that take pictures of the animals they’ve shot—sat with me while I cried. Your own brother remembers the day I got married and takes me out for a drink every year so I’m not by myself like some sad-sack looking at the wedding album on the anniversary. Because you wouldn’t believe the good people have in them, people you don’t even think ever took notice of you at all. They can be so kind, it’d break your heart,” I said.
Then I stopped staring at my hands, at the place my wedding ring had been. I looked at Laura. She swiped the back of her hand across her eyes, brushing back tears. But I could still see them.
“Goddamn, Peters. You could’ve just said there’s good people in this town,” she sniffed.
Then she got up and came back around my desk. Before I could get to my feet to back away from her, she hugged me. She bent down a little, wrapped her arms around my neck and leaned in, holding me tight. It felt so good that my chest ached. I let myself put one arm around her back and squeeze her. Even though what I really wanted to do was turn just a little and pull her into my lap, hold her close and bury my face in her shoulder. I could breathe in that vanilla scent and shut my eyes and shut out the world. It wasn’t even sexual. Okay, so it was partly sexual. There was no denying the attraction. However, mostly it was the warmth and physical contact and how close I felt to her right then and how long I’d been lonely. Hugging Laura back was a mistake, and it made everything hurt a hundred times worse than it already had.
After maybe a minute, I let go of her because I didn’t want to make it weird or risk someone coming in to see me hugging the new recruit. I actually rolled my chair back a little to get away from her after I released her when she didn’t step back right away. She sniffed.
“If you tell my brother you made me cry, I’ll tell him you’re lying,” she said.
“He’d never believe you,” I said.
“He wouldn’t believe me crying either,” she challenged.
“You’re probably right,” I said. “How’s your dad?” I asked, needing to change the subject.
“Not great,” she said. “He always feels like crap after dialysis, and he’s cranky about his diet. I got him to drink his water yesterday and managed to distract him by kicking his ass at Scrabble. It gave my mom a break, if nothing else. But it sucks seeing him like this and knowing I can’t do anything to help.”