So they brought out a sketch artist, and the neighbor did the best she could, although Hoskins thought “handsome with good hair” wouldn’t get them anywhere, it was about as useful as being told the guy was wearing fucking pants, but the drawing and description of the car caught someone’s attention, and they arrested a guy a week later, a polite young man with a good job who drove an expensive car and liked to hurt women; his DNA matched that left at the scenes, the timelines matched, and it was case closed, everything was neatly sewn up. All because of Loren and his spooky ability, and his love of the hunt.
Hoskins never thought he’d be working in Homicide, never thought he’d be side by side with Loren again, and he’d thought he didn’t care so much, that being in the basement, eight hours a day, five days a week thumbing through dusty old files and plugging them into the computer wasn’t bad, but now, cranking the key in his car and listening to the engine labor in the cold, he thinks there’s a good chance that he misses the hunt too.
*
When Hoskins pulls up in front of the house where Carrie Simms’s body has been found, where Loren is running his investigation, he wonders if he might still be in bed, if this might be the most realistic dream he’s ever had. It’s the silent, flashing blue-and-red lights of the patrol units, and the steady, fast thump of the blood through his head. He hasn’t been at a crime scene in a long time; he thought it might never happen again. That’s what happens when they kick you out of Homicide—you can kiss that job goodbye. There’s no coming back from the grave until you’re resurrected for being a good detective, for doing your job right. Rewarded for his merits, although Hoskins wonders if this might be a punishment in disguise.
But it’s not only being here. It’s also the woman coming his way, who’d pulled in behind him and immediately climbed out of her car without bothering to turn her headlights off. At first, he thinks it must be one of the neighbors, home from work and wanting to know what’s going on, but there’s something familiar about the way she swings her arms as she walks, the tilt of her face up toward the sky. And then the woman pushes through the shadows and stops in front of him, her face lit by her car’s headlights so she looks like a ghoul.
“Holy shit,” he says, not bothering to keep his voice down. What’s the point? She’s got to know how surprised he is. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
Sammie Peterson. It’s been seven years since he last saw her, when he’d tried to force her into making a decision, and that was a mistake, because she’d chosen her husband over him. It’d pissed him off, being passed over like that, so he’d gone to her house and knocked on the door; he’d known she was inside but she still wouldn’t answer, so he’d sat in his car, the engine off while he broiled in the afternoon sun, waiting. Hoskins likes to think he’s a good guy, rational, but every man has a point when the wires get crossed and things go bad, very bad, and that was his point, because he loved Sammie—hell, he didn’t love her, he was in love with her. So he’d waited until her husband came home, and Hoskins had told him everything, standing out on the sidewalk while the sprinklers ran and some neighborhood kids pedaled by on their bikes. Told Dean how he’d been fucking Sammie, how she’d basically worshipped his cock, how she’d taken it up the ass and in the mouth and in any position he wanted, how she’d loved it, how she’d begged for it. And Dean hadn’t said anything at all to any of it, just shifted from one foot to the other until Hoskins was done and then went inside and shut the door firmly behind him. He’d been expecting Dean to argue, to fight him, something, and he’d gone home disappointed. But after that he’d started letting go, stopped driving past her house and thinking about her, except sometimes, when he’d wake up with a thudding headache and no memory of his dreams, but he’d know, somehow, that they’d been about Sammie again.
“What’re you doing here?” she asks, and that catches him off guard, because he should be the one in charge, he’s the police and this is a crime scene, but he wasn’t expecting her, especially not like this, casually sauntering up as if they don’t have seven years separating them, as if time has stopped and rucked up so they’re back there now, before it was ever over.
“I’m a cop,” he says rudely, that’s always been his safety net when he’s uncomfortable—bad manners. “And this is a crime scene.”
“I know that,” she says. Pauses, and smiles. “Sorry. It was a stupid question.”
The house they’re in front of is big, older. A Realtor would describe it as rambling, he thought. The mailbox at the bottom of the driveway was built to look like a cat, and then painted orange with black stripes. It’s meant to be cute, whimsical, but Hoskins guesses it probably irritates the neighbors.
“What do you want?” he asks, still looking around, trying to get a feel for the place. This is how he’s always tried to do this—he keeps his eyes open, even before he gets inside, because he never knows what he might see. It’s not the space immediately surrounding a victim that’s the crime scene, some cops forget that. “You need to get the hell out of here.”
“Don’t be like that,” Sammie says, touching his hand. She doesn’t wear a wedding ring, even after all these years. “I wanted to tell you I’m sorry. For what I did to you.”
“What?”