She’d be in a public place, doing a job she could handle in her sleep. If he did come near her she would show him that she was no longer afraid of him. He had more to lose than she did if their relationship became public knowledge.
Screw him! He wouldn’t be allowed to keep her from making a living.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Mumbling something about “shit for brains,” James corrected a mistake he’d made in his daily report. Paperwork was his least favorite part of the job, even if it was done on computer. He hit ENTER then massaged his eyes with his fingers.
Asleep beside his desk, Bogart stirred and growled, deep in doggy dreamland.
A smile tugged at James’s mouth. After four nights on patrol, he felt they were back on top. But that wasn’t his call. Instead of heading home to sleep, he was about to go home to pack. He’d gotten his orders for a week of training not far from Raleigh, beginning on Monday.
If he left early, he could spend the weekend in Raleigh. He needed a little R & R where no one knew him as a cop. It was just lucky coincidence that Raleigh was where Shay lived. A coincidence he had every intention of exploiting.
Yes, she’d tossed him out and told him never to come back. But he hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind. It wasn’t just the sex. It was her loneliest-soul-in-the-world gaze. For a few brief hours, she’d let him in, and it had been magic. He needed to know if their connection was as real as his gut told him it was. Or, just a strangers-in-the-night fantasy.
He pulled a thumb drive from his pocket. He had only one other thing left to do before his shift ended. That was to file his report on Bogart’s disappearance. Every officer in his unit would recognize the description of the suspect as his ex. That was going to be damned embarrassing, but he could tough it out. The department would make the decision to file suit. If so, Jaylynn was about to be hit with a shitload of trouble. On the other hand, the chief might decide to avoid calling attention to potentially embarrassing publicity for the department. Either way, it wasn’t his call.
He pushed the drive into his computer to upload it, needing only one more bit of information to make the report complete.
“Here’s that info you asked for.” Dwight Meyer handed him a folder. Dwight worked fugitives, which specialized in finding people and mining information.
James nodded. “Took a while.”
Dwight shrugged. “Ms. Appleton’s got the lowest social profile of any twenty-something woman I ever came across. Practically off the grid. You’d think she was on the job. No social media pages, no tweets, no blog. Not even a regular cell number. Bet she uses disposables. Yet she jobs for a high-tech temporary employment agency.”
James frowned. “Really?”
He nodded. “First flag, Cannon. She changed her name at eighteen. Legally.”
That didn’t totally surprise James. He had run into a wall trying to track her information down on his own. Shay wasn’t in the Raleigh phone book and had no police record that he could locate, not even a traffic ticket. Was that even possible?
Then there was her almost paranoid need to reveal nothing about herself.
An uneasy feeling moved through him as he indicated the folder. “What’s the second flag?”
“You tell me.” Meyer didn’t like to categorize his finds. “She’s got a sealed juvie file. That’s all I could find out without a warrant.” The final word vibrated in the air between them. Meyer was willing to go deeper, if asked to.
“It’s not that kind of case. Thanks.”
James picked up the folder, unusually slim in that it contained all readily available information on an adult woman’s life. It was also a concrete reminder that he had already behaved unprofessionally with her, in more ways than one. They’d met under extreme circumstances, known each other only a day and one hell of a memorable night. But once back in Charlotte he realized he knew squat about her. Not her full legal name, home address, phone number, or where she was employed, all information needed to complete his report.
What he did know was that they fit together like Legos, even if she had decided to toss him out despite it. Or, because of it.
A lewd grin tugged one corner of his mouth. When he was balls-deep in her neither of them had cared about anything else.
“You hearing this?”
James looked up. “What?”
Sheila Hooper, another K-9 officer, pointed to one of several TV monitors in the report room. “Your ex is going to make a big announcement, right after the commercial break. You aren’t getting married, are you?”
“Fuck that.” He said it without heat. All the same, he moved toward the nearest TV monitor where the local morning news show was on the screen.