by Sarah Blair
“Okay, thanks.” Sidney went up the steps and pulled out her phone and pressed the call button for Williams.
“Sidney Lake.” The small tattered man from earlier stood in front of her, eyes completely black and fixed on her.“I have message for you.”
Sidney stopped in her tracks. Palms tingling. “Renny?”
“Yes.” The man’s accent was thick, but she couldn’t place it beyond something Eastern European. “Go to Mitchell. Bring him back before darkness consumes him.”
“The chief?” Her heart plummeted down to her shoes.
“What about the chief?” Williams answered.
“Where is he?” Sidney asked. “Is he okay?”
“How should I know? I haven’t seen him since Thursday,” Williams said.
“Here.” The man offered her a smudged piece of paper with an address on it. “Go to him.”
Sidney gaped at the man as he crossed the street with a handful of other people. By the time the crowd reached the other side, she couldn’t find him anywhere. She searched the park across the street but there was no sign of his tattered maroon jacket.
“Lake? You there?” Williams said.
“I—yeah. That was, fucking weird. I need to go check on the chief. I think something’s wrong.” She studied the address again. “Can I borrow your car?”
Twenty-One
The water lapped quietly at the sandy shore. Mitch closed his eyes, enjoying the warmth of the sun and the solitude of nature. He could definitely get used to this.
He’d bought the cabin on Lake Winnipesaukee years ago, as an escape from the noise and high-pace of the city, and he hadn’t regretted a single moment he’d ever spent up here. Now he had all the time and money he needed to stay indefinitely.
Retirement was going to be nice.
“Mitch?”
He frowned.
“Just your imagination,” he told himself.
The familiar voice echoed down over the water again.
Urgent. Frightened.
“Mitch!”
He opened his eyes. Heaved a sigh. Pushed himself from the low canvas chair and trudged up the narrow timber stairs to where the modest cabin sat overlooking his cove on Lake Winnipesaukee. He’d never get tired of the view, but for now, he didn’t bother looking back.
He stopped at the edge of the wide yard when Sidney rushed out of the cabin. It took her a second to spot him, and he had that moment to observe her from a distance. She crackled with fear. Raw, like a live wire, loose and completely unpredictable. Then she locked her gaze on him, and everything about her changed. Loose terror, melted into knee-bending relief, then hardened to anger like a dial being turned inside her.
“What the fuck?” She charged him.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. Her intensity frightened him, and he held up his palm as a reflex, but she didn’t slow. “What happened? Is Williams okay? Hey, whoa. Lake? What—”
He thought she might throw a nice, solid hook, but instead her arms closed around his neck. Her body slammed into his. The momentum threw him back. It took a few steps to catch them both to keep them from landing on the ground. He held her close, until they rebalanced.
Her chest heaved in shuddering breaths.
“Lake? Take a breath.” He smoothed his hand up and down her back. She gripped his neck like he was a life preserver and she was drowning. “Talk to me. What’s going on?”
“I thought.” She gasped, her breath hot against his neck. Cheeks wet. “You didn’t answer your phone. I called you the whole way here. Six hours. You just walked out last night. And then you didn’t answer. And I thought—”
“Hey. It’s okay.” He kept his arms tight around her, surprised at the way his own chest clenched at the feeling of holding her so close. “The signal up here is shoddy. I turned it off. That’s all. I’m right here. Everything’s okay. How’d you even find me?”
“A man gave me the address. Renny? Do you know him?” She loosened her grip. He let her go, but not before he made sure she was steady on her feet. She handed him a slip of paper from her pocket.
“I’ve never heard that name.” He didn’t recognize the handwriting either. “Some stranger told you to find me, and you drove six hours into the middle of nowhere, no questions asked?”
“You always get back to me. I thought something happened to you.” Her pale cheeks flushed pink. Wet eyes focused on the lush grass beneath their feet.
His heart expanded at the thought she’d go to such lengths for him. It was a shock, considering he’d spent his own six hour drive up here convincing himself she felt differently. A smile emerged on his face, but he wiped it away as soon as she looked up.
“I guess I owe you a drink, then?” he offered.
“That’d be nice.” She followed him back up to the porch.
“Wait here.” He went inside and grabbed two fresh beers.
It was the first time he’d ever had anyone else up here. He’d considered bringing Becks a few times, but they’d never been able to make it happen. It always felt like too big of a step, like it would change something he wouldn’t be able to take back.
Sidney standing here now gave him a completely different feeling. It was frightening in its rightness. The bright flame of her hair matched perfectly with the orange, gold, and red tapestry of the trees. Her eyes were the same deep green of the lake. She belonged here in a way he couldn’t envision anyone else in his life.
The screen door slapped shut behind him. She turned around and smiled, eyes still red-rimmed and splotchy.
He was in serious, serious trouble.
“Thanks.” She took the bottle and they clinked. “It’s gorgeous up here.”
“Yeah.” Mitch drank his beer and sank down on the porch step to soak in the view. The delicate curl of Sidney’s ear led to the long line of her white neck, and he turned his gaze back to the foliage. “It is.”
“Do you come here a lot?” Now she sounded like she was trying to pick him up in a bar, and the irony wasn’t lost on him. Another time, another place, and this all would have been so much more simple.
“Not as much as I’d like.”
She coaxed the edge of the label loose with the edge of her freshly manicured thumbnail. The strings of glue stretched and separated from the amber glass.
The sun dipped down to touch the tree line at the other side of the lake. Mitch squinted against the shine of it all.
She turned, stretching her legs out along the step. Casual, relaxed. Completely at home. “Did Deirdre like it here?”
“No. She hated leaving the—” He froze. “City.”
Sidney kept her eyes on her label, but her cheeks flushed.
“Wow. You are good.” He shook his head, astonished. He thought he’d been careful. “When did you figure it out?”
She tucked her lip between her teeth and let him work it out. He shut his eyes. “The morgue.”
“Are you mad?” she asked.
“Mad? No.” He shook his head, stared inside his bottle. “Impressed, maybe.”
Shoulders dropped from around her ears, head rested on the railing. She gave him time to process. “You want to talk about it?”
“You sound like my shrink.” He side-eyed her. “Surprise. I’m completely fucked up.”
“Isn’t everyone?” She nudged his knee with her own. He ground his molars out of habit, but there were no antacids at hand. The sun slid further into the trees.
“She was my ex-wife.” Mitch finally admitted. “Got drunk. Fell down the stairs.”
“That was the call you got?”
He nodded.
“Fuck,” she whispered. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were even married.”
“How could you?” He hitched up his shoulder and set his bottle down. “I’d left her before the agency job came up.”
Sidney reached out and rested her palm on his knee. Neither one of them said anything for a long time. The weight of her hand was enough. She was simply there. The air ar
ound them chilled as the last of the sun slipped away and the shadows deepened.
“I was a profiler. I was her husband,” Mitch said. “Literally, my one single job was to be able to know something was wrong and take care of her. I thought it was good enough that I recognized a problem and tried to fix it.”
A knot rose in his throat and he ran his thumbnails back and forth underneath each other at top speed. “She was the one person I was supposed to know better than anybody else, but I couldn’t fucking see her. Worse than all that? She’s gone and it’s done, and I don’t have to deal with it anymore, and I’m so fucking relieved. What kind of a monster does that make me?”
“It doesn’t.” Sidney scooted over. The line of her body melded to his own. Sparks lit up inside him. “It makes you human. Just because you fucked up before doesn’t mean you can’t learn and do better moving forward.”
“But, your parents.” He swallowed hard, her words from the previous night still reverberated inside his brain. “Their killer is still roaming free. Out there. And it’s my fault. Last night you said I was a monster and you were right. I failed Dee, and I failed you. There is no forward for me.”
“What are you talking about?” She scowled at him.
He turned back to the fuchsia sky, watching it melt into the pale purples and washed out denim of twilight. He couldn’t even breathe anymore, now that the words were out there, drifting between them. All the hurt and pain he’d been trying so hard to avoid the past three years was written right there on her face.
“I’m leaving the agency.” He tried to clear the knot from his own throat and failed. “I’m retiring.”
“No.” He barely heard her voice over the rustle of the dry leaves. She placed her empty bottle down and it rattled and tipped on the steps. “No. I never said that. And you can’t.”
“You said if you didn’t find out what happened to Peyton, you wouldn’t be any better than the monster that did it. How is that any different?”
“Because there’s no innocent person sitting in prison taking the blame for it like Hutch will be. It’s not even close to the same thing!”
“But, I thought—” He replayed her words again with fresh perspective. Snapped his jaw shut. His heart pounded. “You don’t blame me, then?”
“For what?”
“For not finding out what happened to your parents.”
“No. You’re the only one who cared about the truth. The real truth. You’re the only one who even tried!” Her eyes went round and filled with unshed tears. “Is that what you’ve been thinking this whole time?”
He sighed and massaged the top of his head. “It’s not your job to worry about me, Lake.”
Tears dripped down her cheeks and she swiped them away with the back of her hand. “You realize that’s the second time you’ve referred to caring about someone as a job in the past few minutes, right?”
“Well.” His mouth worked for words and came up empty. “Shit.”
She scoffed in bitter derision. Then, dropped her cheek onto his knee, leaving a little wet spot on his jeans. He reached out, smoothing his hand over her cheek, clearing the rest of her tears away.
“I honestly don’t know if there’s any connection to Peyton and my parents. It doesn’t feel like it. But, I’m never going to stop trying to find answers.” She sniffled and gazed up at him, eyes deep and green just like the lake below. “I know you won’t either, retirement or not. And, for the record, I never thought you were a monster. You never could be.”
Sidney remained quiet, resting on his knee while he processed this new information. He kept his eyes on the trees on purpose. Once her words had a chance to sink in, a rusty weight unlocked behind his ribs. He felt dizzy and light. Free.
“It’s fucking freezing out here.” His nose was already numb.
“Yeah.” Sidney stood and handed him her empty bottle. “I should get back, anyway.”
“What? No. It’s a six hour drive.” He jumped up after her. “Those roads are ridiculous enough in the daylight. I’m not going to let you get lost, or worse. Stay.”
“They don’t have hotels up here? A B&B?” She glanced between him and the door to the cabin. “I don’t want to intrude.”
“I’m not going to stand out here in the cold and argue about it, Lake. Get inside.” He waved her in, relieved when she sighed and followed.
Twenty-Two
The main area of the cabin opened into a sunken living room with a white couch, and a couple of brown leather club chairs. A mid-century modern coffee table sat in front of a real wood-burning, stone fireplace. Sidney tailed Mitch over to the right where a bar top counter separated the galley kitchen from the rest of the space.
In the kitchen an oblong table with Quaker chairs took up most of the floor space. A wide, picture window above the sink provided a view of the neatly manicured side yard with a shed and a woodpile stacked up beside it.
Every single thing about it was comfortable, polished, and masculine. Classy. Minimalist. It was all very Mitch.
He placed the empty bottles on the counter. “Spaghetti okay for dinner?”
“Sure.” The mere mention of food set her stomach churning. She’d been so hell-bent on getting to Mitch, she hadn’t had anything but a quick snack on the way.
He pulled out a wide pan and placed it on the stove. She caught the same whiff of fresh pine and woodsmoke on his buffalo plaid flannel that she’d smelled earlier when she arrived. Spending six hours replaying that ominous sentence over and over in her brain hadn’t done anything to help her anxiety.
Bring him back before the darkness consumes him.
What the hell did that even mean? What darkness? Clearly he was fine. Other than the fact his wife had just died. But, still. Darkness? What the fuck?
It was done. He was fine. Moving on. Sidney dried her palms on her jeans and returned her attention to Mitch’s wardrobe before her anxiety brain started spiraling again.
There were less than a handful of times she could count seeing him in anything other than dark dress pants and a button up. Occasionally, he got wild and went with pinstripes. Her favorite days were blue Oxford days, because it made his gray eyes extra sharp. Now, he stripped off the flannel and draped it over the back of a chair, revealing a black henley. It hugged him closely, and she could see the outline of his chest, tapering down into a trim stomach. He wasn’t built, but he was fit.
Jeans accented his tapered waist, and hugged his ass just right. She enjoyed this casual version of him she’d never experienced before. He was a lot taller than Hutch. His shoulders were wider. But, aside from the physical difference, he was simply more.
He shoved his sleeves up and washed his hands. He left them up, and went back to the stove, allowing her to study the curve of his forearm that she already had memorized. Usually, she only got the front view when he was behind his desk. Now she could see the fine gray hairs from the side, and examine the way his wrist moved and tilted. The meat sizzled while he stirred and Sidney had never imagined she’d identify so closely with a pound of ground beef.
“Lake?”
She blinked and he stood there waiting with a big pot.
“Oh. Sorry.” She put the pot in the enormous farm sink and waited while it filled. It took a hundred years.
Mitch stepped behind her to reach for a clove of garlic in the window. His hand landed on her waist, and his body brushed against her ass. “Pardon me.”
Was he doing that on purpose or did he just need some garlic?
He just needs the garlic, Sid. Get it together, her brain told her body.
“I’m not used to having help in here,” he admitted. “It’s tight.”
“That’s what she said.” Sidney turned off the faucet and put the pot on the stove.
“Jesus, Lake. You gotta quit hanging out with Williams so much.” He diced the garlic fast, like one of those chefs on the cooking channel.
“Who else am I going to hang out with?”
&n
bsp; His gray eyes focused on her face, and for the first time since she’d been here she saw that he wasn’t wearing his usual gold-rimmed glasses. He clamped his mouth into a flat line, and his jaw ticked. That little squint at the edge of his eyes, told her there was something he wanted to say, but wouldn’t.
“Ow. Shit.” He stepped over to the sink and ran his hand under the water.
“You okay?” She took his hand in hers and examined the cut. The line on his finger filled immediately with blood and flowed over. “It’s not too bad. Do you have any gauze?”
“Under the sink.”
She pulled the first-aid kit out and put it on the table. A wide variety of supplies sat neatly in different compartments. She tore open a package of gauze and doubled the square over.
“Let me see.” She took his finger and pressed the gauze over the cut, putting pressure on it. “Is that okay?”
“It’s fine, thanks.” He glanced over his shoulder. “I got this. You finish the garlic.”
Sidney froze. “I don’t cook.”
“Just dice it and put it in.” He searched through the kit for a bandage. When she still didn’t move he stopped and stared. He hadn’t bothered to shave since yesterday and there was a nice salt and pepper beard coming in. She wanted to know what it felt like scraping against her skin. “Lake. Go.”
She jumped up and went over to the chopping board and stared at the huge knife and the tiny pieces of garlic. She’d watched plenty of cooking shows. She could do this. They made it look easy. Mitch made it look easy. It was fine.
“Fuck,” she whispered. She washed her hands, then grabbed the knife and a piece of garlic. She channeled Rachel Ray and tried a few whacks. Her garlic wasn’t anything like Mitch’s garlic. How did he get it so small? That would take forever.
“Like this.” He came up behind her. His hand landed on her shoulder, before it smoothed down her arm and over her hands. He took a fresh clove of garlic and placed her fingers on it. His other hand wrapped around hers on the knife.
“Use the flat part of the knife to crush it first,” he instructed. “Then put your index finger here, for balance and control. Use the board for leverage. No need to hack it to death. We’re not trying to split firewood. Tuck your fingers to keep them out of the way. See?”