“Yes, definitely,” Zoe said. Shefound her throat strangely dry at the fact that he cared enough to press thepoint. And he did care; he wasn’t just asking. She could see an unfamiliar lookin his eyes that told her as much. “I just need to rest a few days, and I willbe back to fighting fit.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t go fightinganyone any time soon, just because you can,” Flynn said, a light smile curvingthe side of his mouth.
“You did not want to go with Ford?”Zoe asked, changing the subject. After the sheriff and the ambulances had shownup, Ford had been loaded into one of them and driven away, handcuffed to thestretcher he was lying on.
Flynn shrugged. “Sheriff Petrovskican handle it. We caught him in the act, so I don’t think the interviews aregoing to be very difficult. I wanted to stick around and make sure the victimwas all right. And you.”
Zoe nodded slowly. “Thank you,”she said, belatedly realizing after a few seconds that this was probably theappropriate response.
They watched in silence for alittle while longer. An army of deputies and CSIs in white suits were swarmingover the house. Despite the fact that it was the middle of the night, they hadturned up in full force, ready to work. Maybe a few of them had dubioushairstyles that were probably much more polished in the light of day, but theywere here, all of them on call and ready to spring into action when they wereneeded. It was one of the things that Zoe liked about law enforcement, sherealized. Not having to wait on traditional schedules and working hours. Beingable to make something happen when it needed to.
“You did not pull your gun,” Zoesaid, into the companionable silence. Something had shifted between them—somekind of realignment of their working relationship. They’d been through anattack together. Fought to save one another’s lives. That kind of thing made adifference in how you saw someone.
Flynn sighed. From the corner ofher eye, Zoe saw him looking down at his hands, hanging his head. His hair,normally neat, hung down loose over his forehead. “I was afraid of what I mightdo if I had it in my hands.”
Zoe digested that for a moment.She had a feeling that she wasn’t supposed to point out that she had ended upshooting Ford anyway. It wasn’t about that, she thought. “Something to do withyour trauma,” she said, recalling their earlier conversation. It was somethinghe hadn’t much wanted to talk about, the first time. When he had pulled the gunand almost shot their suspect.
A good job, in retrospect, that hehadn’t. That suspect was now unequivocally innocent.
“Yes.” Flynn paused. Zoe couldsense a struggle within him, a fight about how much he should reveal to astranger. She could relate. It was a fight she had been battling most of herlife, and silence almost always won. “I lost someone close to me.”
“Who?” Zoe asked.
There was a long silence. Flynndidn’t answer. She couldn’t blame him. His secrets were his secrets, and if hewanted to keep them, she wasn’t going to argue. It would have been hypocrisy.If he wasn’t ready to tell her, that was fine. If he was never ready, that wasfine too.
It was at that moment Zoe realizedshe was thinking about Flynn in the continuous sense: that they would know eachother after this, that they would work together again, maybe for the long term.It surprised her. Inevitably, it made her think about Shelley.
“Did you know that I lost my lastpartner?” Zoe asked, the words clogging up inside her throat even as shedislodged them.
Flynn turned to look at her for asecond, then looked back out in front, returning the equilibrium. “No. Is thatwhy you were set against having a new partner?”
“Yes.” Zoe cleared her throat,finding that new words were cloying there now. Somehow, she suddenly had theurge to get them out. “Special Agent Shelley Rose. She was killed during ourlast case. We put the wrong suspect in custody and while we relaxed, thinkingit was done, he came after her.”
Flynn made a small sound in theback of his throat. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know any of that. I’d heardthat something happened to your last partner, but no one told me what. It musthave been hard for you, when I kept going after the wrong guys.”
Zoe shrugged. “You have your wayof looking at things. You might have been right. And Pitsis was a very goodsuspect.”
“You got there, though,” Flynnsaid. He paused, shifted his weight. “I don’t know. Maybe the fact that we seethings differently makes us a good team. Better than I thought we would be.”
Zoe blinked, something occurringto her. “How did you know where to find me?” she asked.
Flynn barked a laugh. “I woke upand realized I had a missed call from you. Then I looked outside and saw thecar was gone. I left a bag in the trunk. It’s got one of those fobs attached toit—you know, the ones that connect to an app so you can always see where theyare? I grabbed a deputy and we raced over here. I told him to wait in the carand call for backup while I went in.”
“Just for future reference,” Zoesaid drily, “going in alone is never a good idea.”
“You did it,” Flynn pointed out.
Zoe gestured to the back of herhead without saying anything, making him laugh again.
They settled into silence again,comfortable now. Without realizing it, Zoe thought, she’d ended up with a newpartner. Who ever imagined that that could happen to her again?
She gathered the foil tighteraround her shoulders, watching as the sheriff strode around, giving orders. Itwas over. And somehow, even though she had imagined this as her swan song, Zoefound that she was already looking forward to the next case.
CHAPTER THIRTY TWO
Zoe stood on the sidewalk
