“I’ll call Sherry and let her know we’re up to no good.” His fingers drummed the steering wheel. “She’ll understand I can’t face Nettie with this on my skin.”
Too bad the images wouldn’t wash out of our heads under hot water, but that was the job. We saw things that haunted us, learned secrets we could never tell, heard nightmares given voice, woke drenched in cold sweat with bile perched in our throats all so innocents might remain that way for just a while longer.
The station was quiet when we arrived. Most units were still out on patrol. The one officer we passed in the hall kept her eyes downcast and her strides long to spare us any obligation to exchange pleasantries.
Word traveled fast, and for once, I was grateful.
We split off and hit our respective bathrooms, scrubbing the grime from our hands and faces. The abrasive paper towels from the dispenser scoured off the top layer of skin, which worked for me. We each kept a spare set of clothes in our lockers, and we changed into those. Neither helped much. We still felt dirty, smelled scorched, but at least we looked cleaner.
Our shift might have started out with a bang, but the end was, thankfully, a snoozer. Rixton and I divided the mountain of paperwork looming over us and spent the last two hours bent over the desk we shared.
Liam Dawson, the arson investigator with the Canton Fire Department, called to request our notes since we beat him to the scene and had first crack at the witnesses. Already in this up to our soot-covered ears, Rixton offered to lend a hand. Eager to put this nightmare to bed, Dawson accepted.
And so the Hensarling case became ours.
We managed to sneak out while Uncle Harold was in his shift meeting, neither of us eager to rehash our day, and I sent Rixton ahead of me so he could get started with his shower. That left me to grab the beer, which entailed making the purchase while in uniform. Something about the knowing glint in the cashier’s eyes made me feel dirty, like I had taken a wrong step down a path that dead ended past the edge of a cliff. Shaking off the uneasy feeling, I took my six-pack and returned to my Bronco to find a small mountain waiting for me.
“I’m driving you home.” Cole extended his hand for my keys. “Don’t fight me on this.”
He had the wrong girl. There was no fight left in me. I passed over the keys, climbed into the passenger’s seat and strapped in. The vehicle rocked when Cole joined me, and his scent swept through my head, clearing away the burnt hair smell that made my stomach roil each time I caught an accidental whiff.
We drove home in blessed silence, and I used the time to text Uncle Harold and Aunt Nancy with my plans for the night. After Cole parked in my usual spot, he came around and opened the door for me. He had impeccable manners for a rock formation. When I made no move to get out, he resorted to his favorite pastime and loomed over me.
“Go on.” His hand lifted of its own accord, like cupping my cheek was its idea, and Cole snarled a warning – to himself? – under his breath. He clenched his fist an inch from making contact and backed away until the darkness swallowed him. “I won’t be far.”
“Cole?” I stumbled when my feet hit the ground, my knees stiff and unbending. “Thanks.”
A pair of crimson eyes set in the leonine face of his inner dragon peered out at me from the forest in answer. The pearlescent tip of his whiplike tail cracked against the earth, the scales catching the moonlight, before vanishing.
“I thought I heard your Bronco.” Rixton shoved through the screen door, his hair spiky and wet from the shower. A hint of warmth had returned to his eyes, proof he had spoken to Sherry, and she had pulled him back from the precipice. He noticed the six-pack in my hand and frowned. “Where’s the rest?”
“You have to drive home after this,” I reminded him. “You get one beer. That’s it.”
Grumbling the whole time, he dropped into a blue rocker and held out his hand until I slapped a single beer across his palm. I sat opposite him, popped mine open, and drank. It went down cold and smooth and a little bitter. Or maybe that was just me. We sat together until my eyes grew too heavy to prop open, thanks to the four other beers I swilled, and Rixton stood to leave.
“Are you sure you want to stay out here by yourself?” He toyed with the tab on his can until it popped off in his hand. “We’ve got a spare bedroom with your name on it if you don’t want to be alone.”
“Nah.” I yawned wide. “I want to sleep in my own bed. The upstairs is secure. It’s just hot with only the ceiling fan running.”
“Keep your phone on you.” He flicked the tab at my head and hit me between the blurry eyes. “Call me or Sherry in the morning. Let us know that you’re okay.”
“Morning,” I groaned. “I forgot the installers are coming out first thing before it gets hot.”
“Poor Bou-Bou.” His chuckle thawed him even further. “I’ll text you my hangover cure.”
Having been the recipient of his sage advice once before, I already knew it. Don’t get drunk in the first place.
Smartass.
“Get out of here,” I grumbled, cleaning up my mess. “Some of us need our beauty sleep.”
“Damn, girl. You really are buzzed.” He preened like a parakeet in front of a mirror. “You just implied that I don’t need beauty sleep, which, incidentally, is one hundred percent true. I’m as devastatingly handsome with two hours of sleep as I am with eight. I’m just stunned you finally admitted it out loud.”
“Rixton, stop, please. I already feel the beginnings of the headache I’m going to wake up with.”
“Rude.” He walked to the edge of the porch and balanced on the top step. “I’m out.”
Through bleary eyes, I watched him pour more than three-quarters of his drink on the grass and felt like a total heel. He had sat there and watched while I got progressively wasted – I was a total lightweight – and let me anesthetize myself while he kept his wits sharp enough for the both of us.
Part of me was embarrassed I hadn’t caught his subtle redirections. He and Sherry were a rock-solid unit, and the fact Team Rixton now had three players changed nothing. He kept no secrets from his wife. When he got home, they would talk it out, because he thought best while his mouth was moving, and Sherry would cry the tears he couldn’t afford to let fall. She would make what he had seen and done okay. And Nettie? She would remind him there were still vestiges of wholesome goodness in this world, that there was hope for a brighter future, and it would be enough. It had to be.
All I could think while I sat there was how this was ending, we were ending, and he didn’t even know it yet. I didn’t have the courage to tell him I was quitting the force, that I was moving on. I didn’t know what to say, what kind of lie would break his heart the cleanest, without the jagged edges that would cut us both. How did I admit to the man who was my professional other half that I was splitting up with him? He had already lost one partner. How would he deal with losing another? And would he ever forgive me?
I had to drop the news before the christening. Had to. He and Sherry deserved the option of going with their second choice, probably a local, maybe another cop. Someone who was normal, human, safe. Someone whose siblings weren’t out to end the world my goddaughter was meant to inherit.
“I love you,” I called to his retreating back. “I really, really do.”
“Aww. You’re a sentimental drunk.” Rixton chuckled. “How did I not know this about you?”
“Tell no one.” With a grunt, I shoved out of my rocker and collected the empties. “Or I will end you.”
“Even your threats are cuter when you’re tipsy.” He pointed a warning finger at me. “Remember to call. Don’t make me drive out here and perform a pulse-check on you.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I lined up the cans and started stomping them flat. “I’ll call the second my eyes open.”
“You do that.” He patted the roof of the cruiser. “Night, Bou-Bou.”