“And what does Avery want to become?”
“Right now? He wants to go to work for the National Park Agency. But it changes almost weekly. Last week it was a foreign correspondent for a major news network.”
“Where? Like Moscow?”
“No way. Avery is a warm-weather boy. Hates the snow. He’ll wind up someplace tropical.”
“But still a quagmire of American imperialism…”
“I hope not. I plan to visit wherever he goes. Before that, it was a professional surfer. I liked that one.”
“Ambitious for thirteen.”
“You should’ve heard him at five.”
They stopped talking, the rain hitting the roof like coins. Mike’s stomach grumbled, drowned out by the noise. “You want to take this inside?”
“Yeah, let’s do it.”
She handed him back the files and he tidied up. “We’re going to have to run for it,” he said.
* * *
They each took to a bathroom to dry off then grabbed one of the only free tables. It was the busy summer season, boaters and fishermen and motorcyclists driven indoors by the storm.
The restaurant was attached to a motel; Mike counted seven rooms from his seat by the window. When his eyes drifted back to Overton, he felt his stomach clutch, a sensation he’d long forgotten – he hadn’t experienced anything like it since college, when he’d fallen hard for a girl named Molly.
Maybe it was the fact that Overton’s hair had gotten a good soaking, her blouse was still a little see-through, her skin flush from the run inside. Or maybe it was the way she stood against the wall during interviews, exuding composure while displaying genuine compassion for a victim’s family. Maybe it was her clarity on the job, or her obvious but understated love for her sons.
And then there were her eyes – each color that formed hazel sparkling in the steel light that shined through the big restaurant windows.
“What?” She grew self-conscious. “What are you looking at?”
“Just thinking.” He dropped his gaze and studied his menu.
Heart pounding? You’ve got to be kidding. Days of stomach butterflies and a jacked pulse over a woman were supposed to be long gone.
Shit.
* * *
They ordered and talk came back around to the case.
“So,” Overton said, sipping a Coke.
“Yeah.”
“Alright – I’ll indulge this. We’ll go with your old scores theory for a minute, see where it leads.”
“Old scores… It’s got a ring to it. Okay.”
“I was thinking about this idea that the killer altered his MO with Harriet. Maybe it was like you said – a better fix.”
“Or maybe it was something unforeseen. Messing up his plan.” Mike took a sip of his own drink, water with lemon.
Overton was watching him. “So let’s say this guy gets involved with DSS and Harriet or Lavoie is his caseworker. Could be both – lots of these cases go through all sorts of social workers, lawyers, judges. Do we have anybody so far that fits? Who do you have written down in your little book there?” She was referring to the black Moleskine notebook he kept, currently warmed by his right butt cheek.
She answered for herself, ticking them off on her fingers. “I’d say you got Pritchard, number one. Jameson Rentz we still don’t have eyes on. Then there’s mystery person X – someone like the sex offender from Corina Lavoie’s cases. What about other employees from DSS? As long as we’re taking it all apart, looking at everything – what about Lennox Palmer? Before he chased down absentee fathers for child custody payments, he was a caseworker, too.”
Mike set down the glass, wiped his mouth with a napkin. He was about to respond when there was a commotion at the far end of the restaurant: two men arguing. Mike didn’t peg them as locals, but bikers. There was a row of nice-looking Harleys parked out front, getting wet. It was that time of year, when long chains of motorcycle enthusiasts roared through the small picturesque towns of the North Country. They came down from Canada, or up from New Jersey, Massachusetts, lower New York. For the most part, they were ordinary folk: weekend warriors who were plumbers and teachers and business owners in everyday life. Occasionally, though, you ran into some hard guys.
“God dammit,” one of the men said loud enough to carry. His tone had a ripple effect on the other patrons, most of whom seemed to shrink in their seats. The biker then shoved his seat back, stood up, and pushed his large stomach through the crowded restaurant and out the front doors into the rain.
Mike glanced at Overton, who was twisted around to watch. She turned back, gave Mike a look, lifting her eyebrows.
The door to the kitchen swung open and a man in a stained white apron looked into the dining room and strode to the table. The cook spoke to the remaining biker, who wore a leather vest and gray goatee. Mike took a long sip of his water.
Overton stood up.
The cook was quieter, but his face was red – he pointed after the biker who’d left. The biker in the vest threw down some cash on the table, stood, and strode to the door, giving Overton a look as he went. Then he was gone and she sat back down.
* * *
Back in the car, Overton poked at her teeth with a toothpick as she looked at the restaurant.
The storm hadn’t let up. It was getting dark, the rain just slamming down. Three motorcycle riders in leather huddled beneath the awning, peering out at the row of Harleys. Water poured from the gutter ends, milky white.
“A nice family place,” Overton said.
“You looked ready to splash someone on the floor in there.”
She laughed. “Yeah that was tense for a minute.”
They watched the trio of bikers some more and Mike said, “I wonder where their rain gear is.”
“Nobody should ride in this. Why don’t they just get a room?”
He turned toward her, and his heart started to gallop again. Like a teenager, for God’s sake.
“We never really got our flow back in there,” she said.
“Yeah. We need to, ah…”
Then she leaned in toward him a little, her lips slightly parted, like she had a secret.
He closed the distance, wrapped his arms around her.
They had to stretch across the seats and it pinched his sore neck, but it was worth it.
Totally frigging worth it.
Fourteen
Connor kissed her then withdrew and examined her face. “What’s the matter?”
“My pager is going off.”
“Well, that’s a good thing, right?”
Bobbi playfully squeezed his shoulder and stepped out of the kitchen, went through the living room. Jolyon was on his stomach reading a graphic novel, his legs bent and swinging, oblivious to the surrounding world.
It continued to peck at the back of her mind: this sense of major responsibility she’d be taking on as any sort of significant person in Connor’s and Jolyon’s lives. With everything that was going on it felt like bad timing for complex new thoughts and feelings.
On the other hand, maybe it was the job. For six months she’d seen people screw up with their kids, and perhaps it had jaded her.
She closed the door in the bedroom and called the state registry.
Two minutes later she walked back into the living room, both Connor and Jolyon smiling at her from the couch, where Jolyon read. They looked sweaty. “Sorry it’s so hot in here,” she said.
“Oh, I can hook you up,” Connor said, getting to his feet. “I got a buddy who does air-conditioning.”
“I can’t afford that.”
They met in the middle of the near-empty room. “I could get you one used, cheap. And your utilities are included, right? No landlord expects someone to suffer through the summer in a third-floor walk-up without… Hey, you gotta go or something?”
“Yeah, maybe. I’m waiting to hear back from the police.”
“Everything okay?”
“Just work.”
She glanced at the clock – almost seven. “I’ll need to get ready, though, in case I have to go. Really sorry about this.”