by S. E. Harmon
I could appreciate plain talk. I inclined my head in a nod. “Then speak plainly.”
“I like you, Christiansen. Always have. I liked you for Danny from the start. I thought you guys were great for one another, but I guess even I have a wrong thought every now and again.”
“That it?”
“No. I don’t really know what happened between the two of you, and I guess in the end, it doesn’t really matter.” He shook his head. “But I get to be worried about my partner. I get to be worried about whether I’m going to have to pick up the pieces when you get froggy and prance off. Again.”
My cheeks were heated, but I bit back my instinctive curse. I wanted to lash out and tell him to mind his own fucking business, but deep inside I knew he wasn’t wrong. “I don’t prance,” I finally said.
His mouth quirked. “Fine. Stride. You have a very manly stride.” He focused his blue eyes on me, and I had to fight hard not to squirm. There wasn’t a bit of their usual playfulness, and I knew he expected an answer. Wasn’t going away until he got one. “Are you here to stay?”
It was a fair question. A good question. One that deserved an honest answer. I shook my head slowly. “No.”
“Then treat him that way.”
He lasered through me a little longer until I finally gave a jerky nod.
It was strange talking to someone about my relationships, past or not. I guess it would be natural for Kevin and Danny to talk. They were partners. I just didn’t have that kind of thing in the BAU. We talked about cases. Murderers. Serial killers. That was about the whole of it. No one was in any rush to get profiled by talking to a fellow profiler. It wasn’t intentional. It was just the way it was. After so long on the job, we saw people differently.
Something about the thought of Danny having someone to confide in made me grateful, and I tried to be nicer. “We’re just friends. And we work well together.”
“That’s something in and of itself.” Kevin shook his head. “I mean, take my wife and me. Love her to death, but we couldn’t possibly work together. Anyone who’s ever made a life with another human being knows what it’s like to want to kill that person for something ridiculous. Like constantly leaving the flap on the pepper open.”
I stared. “What?”
“It’s just a little flap. But if you leave it open, who knows what can get in.”
“Kev.”
“I mean, they obviously put the flap there for a reason. You think she would know that.”
“Kev.”
“It even goes click when you snap it shut. Things that have a clicking lid should be closed.”
“Kevin,” I bellowed.
“What?” He had the temerity to look annoyed at the interruption.
“I don’t have the time or the interest to listen to your insane pepper gripes.”
“My point is… wait, what do you mean ‘insane’ pepper gripes? You leave the pepper open too?”
I sighed. “I have a grinder.”
“Hmm. A grinder that stays closed until use. And fresh pepper as a bonus.” Kevin licked his lips when he thought hard about something. It was half-endearing, half-annoying. At that point, it leaned more toward annoying. Like “I’m gonna have to kick his ass” annoying. Right about the time I was deciding on whether to use judo or aikido, he finally nodded. “I could get used to a pepper grinder. That’s not half bad.”
I remembered then why I don’t talk to people. “You owe me ten minutes of my life. And I do plan to collect. Now get out.”
“Good grief,” he grumbled as he pushed out of his chair. “You try to help people.”
I recalled my manners a scant second before the glass door swung closed behind him, and I begrudgingly called out, “Thanks for bringing the box.” I received an offhand wave in return as he ambled down the corridor. “And stop stealing my Kit Kats.”
He was probably going home. I sighed and rubbed my neck. That sounded kind of nice right then. But I had a sea of tips to wade through. I glanced at the dusty box, which was almost bursting at the seams.
Fuck. Guess I was a little hasty when I sent Kevin away.
I THOUGHT I felt fingers in my hair. A whisper of something on my forehead. It felt good enough, caring enough, that I gave a little moan of protest when the gentle fingers receded. Only to be hit in the shoulder.
“Ow!” I woke up with a start and popped my head up from the table, a piece of paper stuck to my cheek.
I glanced over to see Danny seated on the edge of my desk with a small smile on his lips. “Good dreams?”
“Not exactly. Did you hit me?”
“No,” he said innocently.
I gave him the stink eye as I peeled Tip #1282 from my cheek and dropped it on the desk. I scrubbed my hands down my face. On the downswing, I caught a glimpse of my watch. “Shit. That can’t be right.”
“After midnight,” he confirmed.
It was hard to tell the time in the police station, especially since I closed the blinds hours earlier. The lights were always on, bright and fluorescent as ever. The hallway was still filled with sound. The second shift was going about their business just like it was morning.
He sent me a fond look and tapped the two empty Monster Energy cans on my desk. “Just so you know, these are not a substitute for real sleep.”
I scowled and edged my garbage can under my desk so he wouldn’t see the third empty can. “I know that. I’m just trying to make some headway.”
He reached over and closed the binder. “Did you find anything useful?”
“Not really.” I sighed and leaned back in my chair. I stared at Amy’s lighthouse painting, and my brow furrowed in thought. I brought it upstairs on the first day, and some helpful soul had tacked it up next to my desk. It didn’t serve to soothe me—only to remind me we still didn’t know what the hell it meant. “I found a tip that a bus driver saw her boarding a bus to Tacoma. Two days after her disappearance. It’s worth checking out.”
“Bet he gets a lot of teens, though. Might be hard to tell one from the other.”
“I’d be shocked if it actually panned out, but we should still check it. There’s also an interesting tip from an unidentified man saying he bought a violin with the initials AMG on it.”
Danny raised a skeptical brow. “Her middle name is Maria.”
“Could be a Craigslist deal gone bad.”
“Private seller would be hardest to find,” he said. “Going to every local pawn shop and asking if anyone’s pawned a violin in the past five years? That ought to keep us busy for the next century.”
“I already have Chevy looking into it.” I stared at the painting some more. “That thing is really starting to bother me.”
“You don’t have any patience.” He smiled. “That’s the joy of being on a cold-case squad.”
“Being driven crazy by endless clues that never fit?”
“Time,” he corrected. “We have the time to make it all fit. And there’s nothing better than seeing someone’s face when the past catches up with them. When everything that they thought they’d buried comes to light.”
“That’s deep.”
“Just call me Mariana Trench.”
I thought about that for a minute, my chin in my hand. But patience had never been my strong suit. “Gimme a knife, Mariana.”
“Oh for Pete’s—”
“I just want to check something.”
He sighed heavily, but dug in his pocket. After a moment he tossed me a Swiss army knife that I wasn’t surprised he had. Always prepared. That was Danny. I flipped open the knife, turned the painting over, ran the knife along the seam, and cut carefully until the canvas flopped open. And then I raised an eyebrow in Danny’s direction as a couple of pictures fell on my desk.
“Yahtzee,” I murmured as I propped the painting up against my desk. I handled the pictures gingerly. “Isn’t this Jenna?”
“Looks like.” Danny took one of the pictures from my hand. “What kind of teenager h
as paper pictures?”
“They’re the kind from a photo booth. Like at some type of fair.”
In the picture, Amy was smiling and Jenna was kissing her cheek. The look in her eyes… well, it spoke volumes. I immediately felt stupid for my assumptions. Not only was I a profiler who should’ve looked into the possibility, but I was also a gay man. “We’re idiots,” I murmured.
“What?”
“We didn’t even entertain the thought that the new mystery man wasn’t a man at all.”
Chapter 17
TWO DAYS later, Jenna agreed to meet with us. I manipulated our phone conversation to make it seem like meeting at her job would be more convenient for her. In reality I just wanted to speak to her away from her overbearing mother.
As Danny and I walked down the quiet, half-dark hall, everything seemed to be a strange dichotomy of familiar and new. It was strange to be back in grade school. Especially my old grade school. It seemed impossible that I’d once walked down those halls as a student. Everything was so small. Even the water fountain was about two feet lower than it should be.
“Could you stop sighing please?” Danny bumped my shoulder as we walked. “It’s chilly enough in here.”
“Sorry. It’s just that I remember this place, you know? Such a simpler time.”
“You sound like you want to go back.”
“Maybe I do. Better than getting old.”
“The opposite of getting old isn’t getting younger, Rain. It’s death.”
“Doesn’t it bother you that we’re marching slowly toward nothingness?” I demanded. “That every day we go on brings us that much closer to the end of our existence?”
“Not really.”
I scowled. Danny never took me up on my philosophical bullshit. It was probably for the best. “There’s just so much I haven’t done. So much I haven’t experienced.”
His mouth twitched. “Like what?”
“Don’t laugh at me.” I gave him a poke. “Like seeing the Great Pyramids. Having pizza in Italy. Driving a Maserati. Saying ‘Book ’em, Danno.’”
He finally had to grin. “Your bucket list needs some work.”
When we reached Jenna’s classroom door, I peered through the little glass cutout. She was grading papers, head bowed, pen working busily. I rapped on the door, and she jumped. We locked eyes for a moment, and she beckoned us in.
“Detectives. Glad you could make it.” She sent us a smile that was a touch nervous. “Please. Have a seat.”
Easier said than done. It was the land the munchkins built. I wormed my way into a school desk two sizes too small and scooted my butt across the tiny seat. By the time I finished, my body was twisted like a soft pretzel. I hoped I didn’t need to reach my gun. Or get up in a hurry. Or use my balls ever again.
I glanced over to see how Danny was faring, only to find him sitting on top of the desk next to mine. Yeah. That probably would’ve been the way to go. He sent me an arched eyebrow—the one with the barbell in it. I’m convinced the only reason he got that piercing was to increase the power of his “are you an idiot” eyebrow arch.
I hoped the tiny desk legs splintered under his considerable bulk like used toothpicks.
Danny cleared his throat. “Jenna, we’re here to talk about some things that have come to light during our investigation.”
“Such as?”
“Were you aware that Amy had started seeing someone other than Brock?”
“No,” she answered coolly. “I wasn’t aware.”
“You were best friends, yes?” Danny folded his arms. “Strange she wouldn’t have shared something like that with you.”
“Well, she didn’t.” She shook her head. “My God, we’ve already been through all this. Several hundred times.”
“Then it shouldn’t be difficult to remember.”
“There’s nothing to remember. You guys are just asking the same questions a million different ways.”
“I think I have a new question.” I pulled out the picture I cut from the painting and slid it across the desk. Her eyes dropped to the photo, and I heard a slight intake of breath. Other than that she didn’t make a sound. We watched silently and waited.
I didn’t want to prod. Only… time was a-tickin’. And my God, it wasn’t like we’d caught her taking a dump in a memorial fountain. “Are you sure there’s nothing you need to tell us?”
She stared at the picture a little more and then finally sighed. “I don’t want to, but I suppose I should.”
“The two of you. Were you—”
“Yes,” she said, not looking up. “We were… together.”
“Together how?”
She glared at me and swept her hair behind her ear. “Seriously?”
“I need to know.”
“Together together. I loved her. Okay? And she loved me.”
Her crushed expression made me almost reach out in sympathy. I hovered for a minute as I debated patting her hand. I wasn’t a particularly large man, but my hand above hers looked like a clumsy bear paw. Hell, I didn’t know at that point if she would welcome touch, period. I finally dropped my hand. It wasn’t my thing anyway.
In general I didn’t reach out to other people physically. It was strange. Danny was the one who grew up without parents for the majority of his life, yet between us, he was the touchy-feely one. And annoyingly secure about it. When we watched TV together, he was always the one to absently pull me across the empty cushions and close the gap between us. After sex, when I would instinctively pull away and roll on my side, I’d almost come to expect Danny’s heat to enfold me from behind. Always closing the gap between us.
I hadn’t realized until then how much I missed that. Some part of me recognized that when I’d applied for a transfer to DC, I created space between us yet again. And expected Danny to close the gap. Only he hadn’t done it that time. He’d let me go without so much as a flicker of protest.
Danny’s phone brought me back to the present, and I willed myself to stay focused. He excused himself and strode out of the classroom to answer the phone with a crisp “McKenna.”
I waited until the door swung shut behind him to continue. “Why didn’t you tell anyone that the two of you were in a relationship?” I asked gently. “Any little detail can help when someone is missing.”
“Because I didn’t do anything to her. What’s the point of putting it all out there like that if it’s not going to help find her?” She swallowed. “It was private. Just for us.”
“That’s fine until the police are involved. You should have told us.”
“What’s the point in getting my mother all upset if…?” She shook her head. “You don’t understand. I just can’t tell her. Since Aaron died, I’m all she has. I can’t break her heart like that.”
Break her heart? By being yourself? But I couldn’t judge her too harshly. I personally hadn’t had much of a choice. My mother took one look at my prom date and said, “My God, Rain, I hope you’re not leading this poor girl on.” Luckily my date, Angela Jamison, had just been doing me a favor. My father certainly didn’t help things by peering out of the kitchen and sighing, “Honey, how long are we supposed to pretend we don’t know he’s gay?”
“I’m guessing you do remember what you were talking about the night she went missing?”
She looked down, and a sweep of shiny hair fell into her eyes. “We got into an argument before she went to work. She was all upset because she had an argument with her mother that morning, and she told me she couldn’t wait until she didn’t have to deal with that anymore. Couldn’t wait until we were on our own in Arizona. At Pemberton. I… I told her that I couldn’t go. Couldn’t go with her.” She swallowed hard and looked away. “I think part of me always knew that I couldn’t. It was just better to dream. To imagine how things could be.”
“What did she say?”
“She was disappointed. Angry. More angry with my mother than me, I think. I didn’t have the courage to leave. To stand
up for us.”
“And you fought?” My brow furrowed. “Did things just get out of hand?”
“No. No.” She shook her head angrily. “I would never hurt Amy like that.”
“I don’t know,” I said mildly. “I’m sure you telling her she wasn’t worth the risk was somewhat hurtful.”
“You don’t understand,” she burst out. “My mother holds me responsible for my brother’s death. She never says it, but I know it’s there. I was supposed to pick up Austin that night, and I didn’t. I was too tired. I told him to catch a ride home with his friend’s older brother.” She slammed her hands angrily on her thighs. “It was my responsibility, and if I’d done what I was supposed to do, he’d still be alive. She’s never forgiven me, or let me forget. So I couldn’t leave.”
“And Amy didn’t understand that?”
“Would you?” Her fingers stole to her neck, and I wondered if she even realized she was tracing the invisible line where the locket used to be. “She wasn’t pleased.”
“And the locket?”
“I gave it back to her.” Her face was a study of full-on devastation. “She told me I didn’t need it anymore.”
“I’m sorry,” I said softly.
“It’s what I deserve. You know why we wore those necklaces? I know it was old-fashioned and naïve, but it was almost like a promise. A promise to each other.” Her hands dropped to her lap. “A promise I knew I couldn’t keep.”
She shook her head. “That’s it. Now you know it all.”
“Do I?” I narrowed my eyes. “You’ve been really good at lying to us. How do I know this is the truth?”
“Because it is.” Her eyes looked a little shiny, and I prayed she wouldn’t start crying. “It was stupid to lie to the police. I just… I wasn’t ready to answer those questions. I was afraid of what my mother would think.”
“Was?”
“Am,” she said quietly.
“I sympathize with that. Believe me I do. But when I work a case, I don’t stop until I get answers. Until the person responsible for Amy’s disappearance is caught and put away. I just hope that person isn’t you.”