*
“I didn’t find anything. But that doesn’t matter now. I’ve got something better.”
Becker grinned to himself as he sat behind the wheel of his truck in a sharp curve of High Sky Inn Road. Dressed in scent-blocker camo pants, a bubble vest, and cap, he looked like any other Arkie who might have pulled off to enjoy the view, or take a leak. The Steiner binoculars resting on his thigh hinted at the real reason for his stop at this particular spot.
He’d gotten lucky. Now, whether it was good luck or bad would depend on if and how he could capitalize on his new information.
“Battise has a guest. Called the license plate in. You’re not going to believe this. It belongs to Jori Garrison.”
He listened carefully to the response, straining to detect the degree of concern in the voice on the other end rather than in the actual words.
“Hell, yeah, I’m sure. Looking at the woman standing on his deck as we speak.”
A slight rise in pitch from the voice on the other end. He smiled. That’s what he was listening for.
“How the fuck should I know? My three days off are up. I’m headed back to Little Rock. We have an agreement. Nothing’s changed.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Law looked over at Jori. “Coffee?”
“Yes.”
“How about a little breakfast, too?”
Out of the corner of his eye he saw her shake her head. “Are you sure? It’s going to be a long boring morning before lunch.”
“No.”
He glanced again at her. She was staring straight ahead out the front window of his patrol car at the streets of Springdale clogged with the morning commute. No expression. No apparent interest in him.
The only thing possibly more hostile toward him was that cat crammed in the travel crate on his backseat. Even Sam, who usually took up the entire backseat, was giving the feline a wide berth. Argyle had already demonstrated her reach through the bars with a paw full of needlelike claws.
Jori said she couldn’t leave Argyle in the motel room all day. So there was an aluminum pan and a sack of kitty litter in his vehicle. Perfect.
The day was overcast, threatening rain. Sunrise had yet to have much of an impact on the darkness, making everyone feel like their day had begun much too early. But it was a sunny spring day outside compared with the atmosphere inside his cruiser. Iceberg in his passenger seat.
He’d picked Jori up at her motel this morning so she could watch him and Sam go through their paces on a normal workday. He’d cleared it with his captain by getting permission for her to do a ride-along. Of course, it was mostly going to be a sit-and-watch-him-at-his-desk-in-the-office-along. He’d said he was working with a wounded warrior program to ensure that their service dogs could function even in a high-energy environment like a state police station. He’d omitted the PTSD issue. As far as he was concerned, Sam had already proven an ideal station dog, quiet, attentive, but never drawing attention to herself. If only her trainer were as easygoing.
Heat of the moment. That’s what she’d said to him after he’d finished checking his computer the day before and found her on his back deck. She hadn’t even allowed him to begin some version of maybe-I-made-an-error-in-judgment, just-short-of-an-apology speech.
She’d lifted a hand to silence him, her right eyebrow arching slightly. “Forget it. It happened. It won’t happen again. Heat of the moment.”
And that was that. After he gassed up her SUV, she’d driven away without even a backward glance.
Law cursed under his breath as the eighteen-wheeler, three cars in front of him, began rolling forward at a pace a chicken could outrun. At the rate he was creeping along they’d miss the light, again. This wasn’t L.A., Houston, or Manhattan, but the Fayetteville-Springdale half-hour version of rush hour was just as slow, boring, and frustrating.
When he’d called Jori’s motel at six a.m., he half expected to hear she’d never checked in. But she answered, sounding wide awake.
So he manned up, told her he was going to the gym for an hour and then he’d be by to pick her up to do her first day of shadowing them.
All she’d said was, “Fine.” One lousy syllable.
Since then, she hadn’t spoken a word he hadn’t had to pry out of her.
Law ground his teeth as the light in front of him turned red for the second time without him getting through the intersection. “Forget this.”
He turned on his blue lights, pumped his horn a few times, and gave his siren several short blasts.