But that was art, those were photos, witness statements, a couple of TV interviews.
This was the woman, in the flesh, and she shut down his brain for a solid ten seconds where the only thing that got through the buzz was a stunned: uh-oh.
As she walked straight toward him, the buzz got louder.
“All clear,” the goddess said.
“Thanks, baby. This is Reed, the island’s soon-to-be chief of police, and one of my favorite people in this life and all the others. Reed, my most valued treasure, my Simone.”
“Reed, of course.” Those lips—those gorgeous lips—curved into a gorgeous smile. The voice was like soft mist over a magic pool. “I’m so happy to meet you, finally.”
He took the hand she offered—did she feel that? Did she feel that rush? “Same here,” he managed.
“Simone, why don’t you take Reed over to one of the bars, get him a drink. You want a beer, right, Delicious?”
“Ah, sure. Beer. Fine. Good.” Jesus.
“Let’s fix you up.”
Simone gestured and led the way while he tried to pull himself together. It helped a little that a few people called out a greeting, or gave him a slap on the back, an easy punch on the arm.
She signaled to the bartender, turned to Reed to make party conversation while they waited on his beer. “So, you bought the Dorchet place?”
“Yeah. I’m, ah, moving in all the way after the first of the year.”
“It’s a great house.”
“You been in it? Sure you have,” he said immediately. “I fell pretty hard.”
“I can’t blame you. The—”
“Widow’s walk,” they said together.
She laughed CiCi’s laugh, said, “Exactly,” and he felt some of his balance restore.
He took the beer, took a chance. “You’ve probably got stuff to do, but can I have a minute?”
“Sure.”
He eased her away from the crowd around the bar to a breathing space on the far side of the great room. “I wanted to say, I know a little more about art since hanging around CiCi.”
“She’s really fond of you.”
“I’m in love with her.”
Simone smiled. “Join the crowd.”
“She opened a door for me I couldn’t quite get through. Anyway, I still don’t know a hell of a lot about art, but that piece over there?”
He gestured toward Emergence.
“If I could ever afford real art, and it didn’t already belong to CiCi, that would be mine.”
She said nothing for a moment, but reached out to take a flute from the tray of a passing server. “Why?”
“Well, it’s beautiful, but mostly when I look at it I see proof of life. That’s a weird term for it.”
“No. No, it’s perfect actually.”
“I was there that night.”
She nodded slowly, kept her eyes on the sculpture.
“I don’t want to get into all that. It’s a party. I’m saying it because I’m not sure if it hits me deeper, somewhere deeper, because I was there. I’ve seen more of your work—CiCi took me up to your studio, and I’ve seen other pieces here and there. It’s all, like, magical. But this one, well, kind of grabs me by the throat and punches straight to the heart.”
He took a sip of beer. “Anyway.”
“You were shot.” She looked at him then, directly into his eyes. “Not that night, last summer. But it’s connected.”
“Yeah.”
“How are you?”
“I’m standing here with a beautiful woman, drinking a beer. I’d say I’m pretty damn good.”
“Would you wait here a minute?”
“Okay.”
“Just wait here. I’ll be right back.”
He watched her walk away, and took an internal scan. His heart appeared to be beating normally again, and his brain seemed to be back at full function.
Just some weird reaction, he concluded. Just some strange jolt to the system, and all better now.
Then he saw her coming back, felt that same damn jolt, and had his second uh-oh of the night.
She had a pretty woman in a red dress in hand. He recognized her face as well.
“Mi, this is Reed.”
“Hi, Reed.”
“Mi-Hi Jung. Dr. Jung,” Simone added.
“Mi.” Smiling easily, Mi held out a hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Reed bought the Dorchet house—the one with the widow’s walk, with its back to the woods.”
“Oh, that’s a great house.”
“He’s going to be the new chief of police on the island. He was a police detective—is, I guess—in Portland.”
“Was,” he said after he shook Mi’s hand.
“He was there that night.” Simone didn’t have to say what night. They all knew. “The three of us were all there. It’s odd, isn’t it? We were all there. Now we’re all here. Reed became a cop. Mi’s a doctor, a scientist, a biomedical engineer. And I…” She looked toward the sculpture. “Did you become a cop because of that night?”
“It pointed me in that direction. It and Essie. Essie McVee.”
Simone’s gaze held his, intensely now. “Officer McVee. She’s the one who found me. She’s the one who responded first. You know her.”
“Yeah. She’s a good friend. She was my partner the last few years.”
“I remember now,” Mi said. “You grabbed the little boy, got him to a safe place. You weren’t a cop then.”
“No. College kid. I was working at Mangia, the restaurant.”
“You weren’t hurt that night,” Simone remembered out loud. “But later. Mi was hurt. A cop and a scientist. Tragedy, you said, Mi, brings out more of who we are. Excuse me.”
“I upset her,” Reed began as Simone walked away.
“No.” Mi laid a hand on his arm, watched her friend. “No, you really didn’t. Upset, she’d have been frigid or molten. She’s thinking, and she’s looking at something she’s refused to look at for a long time.”
Mi turned back to him, positively beamed. “I don’t know what you said or did, but I’m even happier to meet you.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Reed’s on-the-job training began in January, in earnest. He knew how to be a cop, how to be an investigator, how to interview a suspect, a witness, a victim. How to a build case. He knew the demands and reasons for procedure, for paperwork. He understood the value of community relations and connections.
He wasn’t as confident in his skills as an administrator, a boss, or with politics, and in particular, island politics. And he understood, clearly, he came into the job as an outsider.
He did what he could to counteract the outsider status. He walked or biked into the village every morning, had coffee and tried out the menu of breakfast items at the Sunrise Café—open all year from six a.m. to ten p.m. He chatted up waitresses, shopkeepers, bought his first snow shovel from the local hardware, and when January dumped a couple feet of the white stuff on the island, went back and invested in a snowplow.
At CiCi’s suggestion, he hired Jasper Mink to deal with a handful of the take-it-as-is items in the house that actually needed addressing.
He hit it off just fine with the Willie Nelson look-alike contractor with the Def Leppard tee under his flannel shirt.
He shopped at the local market, warmed a stool at Drink Up—the only bar open winters—and generally made himself visible and accessible.
He learned the rhythm of the island in winter. Slow, weather-obsessed, self-contained, and proud of it. He made a point of talking to the volunteer firefighters, the local doctors—and got scooped up for an exam.
Same damn thing happened at the dentist.
Because politics had to play a part, Reed sat in on his first town hall meeting, listened to complaints about the power outage on the south side of the island during the last storm, concerns about erosion on the north end. He noted the bitter exchange about mandatory recycling and those—called out by name—who ignored the ordinance routinely.
He hadn’t expected to do any more than listen and take note, and felt his stomach sink when the mayor called out his name.
“Stand up there, Reed, so people can see you. Most of you know, or should, that Reed’s taking over as chief of police when Sam Wickett retires in a couple months. Come up here, Reed, introduce yourself. Tell people a little about yourself and why you’re here.”