A few cops even investigated cold cases after they retired, so haunted were they by some crimes.
So yeah, she got it. Totally. Which meant she needed to quell her reactions to Duke. They were too strong. Too reactive. She’d dealt with worse than a difficult relative before.
And that was what he was. However intimidating, however angry, he was still a grieving brother who needed his resolution.
Needing it in three weeks was the only unreasonable part. Larry hadn’t been here long enough to create a big list of persons of interest. A poker group, eight people max? Not much to go on.
Nor were the regulars he’d met at Mahoney’s, although they wouldn’t be overlooked as the department worked to peel back the layers on this case. If there’d been an argument or altercation, Mahoney would know. If it had been bad enough, he’d have reported it. Nothing had seeped out of that bar.
When she returned to a desk she shared with other officers, she realized she was at loose ends. Her assignment to keep an eye on the major made it impractical to follow any kind of duty that she couldn’t quit immediately.
Damn it. She liked to work. In fact, she liked it so much she averaged about sixty hours a week. That curtailed her social life, but that was okay. She was an introvert in an extrovert’s job. Interacting with people all day made her crave solitude with a book or a movie. Recharging.
Or maybe she could work out in her tiny gym in her basement. The house her mother had left her on Poplar had made it possible, which was good because this town had one gym open to the public: at the college. Public hours were limited, of course, making its use more difficult.
The house was cozy, which suited her. Just two bedrooms and a dine-in kitchen, no dining room. One full bath. The extra bedroom served as her home office and contained the daybed she’d slept in while caring for her mother.
It was a newer house than many neighboring ones that had been built during the waning days of the Victorian era, but it displayed nice touches with dark woodwork and matching solid-core oak doors. Over the time since her mother’s death, she’d started repainting the interior and had indulged her love of color, such as the Wedgwood blue in the living room and sunshine yellow in the kitchen.
When she walked through the door, she initially felt sorrow. Despite having many good memories here, she also had a lot of sad ones, and every time she entered the house, she missed hearing her mom call out, Hi, honey.
Sometimes she was almost sure she’d heard the greeting. Each time it happened, it arrested her. Even in midstep, she’d pause, listening.
She changed quickly into her workout clothes and headed down into the basement. There her weights, her exercise bike and her treadmill awaited her. This wasn’t her favorite part of the house, but it was a necessary one, holding the washer and dryer, a utility sink and various boxes of stored items.
Items that she kept thinking she should give away. She had no use for her mother’s clothes, for one thing. She’d already saved what she cared about.
An hour later, wishing for a TV so she’d have something other than her own rambling thoughts to keep her company while she exercised, she took her sweat-soaked body upstairs for a shower.
Then it was time to consider dinner. Dang, her life outside of her job had become a totally predictable routine. Exercise, dinner, book or DVD, or sometimes some browsing on the internet.
Occasionally she wondered if that was a reaction to all the many months she’d spent looking after her mother. A time to heal, maybe a time to hide from personal cares.
Whatever. She was in no mood to do anything about it just then. Major Daniel Duke was probably going to invade her entire life with his quest. He’d taken over the job part of it. Now she could live in expectation of getting a phone call even at night as he told her what harebrained thing he was planning to do.
She caught herself. “Not fair,” she said aloud to the empty house. She had to stop ascribing things to him she couldn’t yet know.
He’d really set her back up, right from the time he’d first walked into the office.
Why?
When it came, the answer annoyed her no end. He was attractive. Very attractive. A trickle of warmth passed through her as she visualized him. Oh yeah.
She needed that like a hole in her head.
Chapter Three
Duke decided to get breakfast at the truck stop diner across the highway from the motel. The rain outside was steady, and while it wasn’t a downpour, there was more of it than a drizzle. The air felt a bit chilly as he stepped outside, making him glad of his lightweight jacket. Georgia had warmer weather, and he seemed to have lost the cold conditioning from Afghanistan. A few more days and he’d adapt.
If there was one thing he was confident of, it was his ability to adjust even to the worst conditions, and this was a long way from bad.
With a clearer head, he grew dubious about what he was doing here. As he ate a large breakfast, he wondered what he hoped to accomplish. Yes, he wanted justice for Larry. Yes, he wanted the killer behind bars on a murder charge. Yes, he’d been furious and aching with grief since he got the news.
But what was he going to do?
It wasn’t as if he had a list of Larry’s contacts here. As he’d been running the streets of this pleasant town late yesterday, he’d calmed down a bit and really looked around. No matter what he did, he was going to be a visible stranger in these parts.
Why should anyone talk to him? Maybe a few of Larry’s acquaintances here might, but
