“I’m familiar with your brain,” she replies. “Which is why I’m here. But it might be happy to know Creagan has already started the paperwork, and as soon as Sam gets him the information from the break-ins in Sherwood, they’ll be able to submit the petition for the exhumation.
I let out a long slow breath and nod as we walk into the living room. She starts unpacking the food, and I go into the bedroom to change into pajamas, then the bathroom to wash my face.
“Is it ridiculous I almost feel guilty about wanting to dig up her grave?” I ask as I sweep a warm cloth over my skin. “I didn’t even know there was a grave, much less a casket to dig out of it. But it still feels strange to be sitting around, hoping a judge is going to give me permission to have a backhoe wrench her casket out of the ground.”
“She would rather have you figure out what happened and put all this behind you than have a fake grave,” Bellamy offers when I get back into the living room. “Not a sentiment I ever envisioned myself saying, but it stands.”
As soon as the rich aromas of the food fill the living room and I have chopsticks between my fingers, we stop talking about everything looming over me. It’s not gone from my mind. Nothing is going to take it out of my thoughts, but I can push it to the back of my mind and let it churn while I take some time away from it. We stay up talking late into the night, chasing away the darkness, and filling minutes I know will torment me otherwise. I’m in a holding pattern, and I hate it. I want to do something, to make progress, but for now, I wait.
Finally, I climb into bed, and seconds later drop into sleep.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Bellamy wakes me up to say goodbye before heading into work. Even with the heat on in the house, there’s a distinct nip in the air. I’m tempted to roll over and create a cocoon with my blankets so I can just stay in bed for a few more hours. But I can’t sleep. The second she wakes me up, my mind is jostled into full speed again, and after a few minutes of trying unsuccessfully to muffle it with my head stuffed under the pillow, I get up.
I make breakfast and catch up with Sam on the phone as I drink coffee and stare out the window at the thick layer of snow outside. I’ve never been a particularly big fan of snow in February. Not that it’s not beautiful, but it always strikes me as out of place. By February, it seems we should be coming up on Spring, not still hiding under a frozen blanket. But there is something lovely about the morning sunlight sparkling on snow that hasn’t yet been disturbed, and I choose to enjoy that about it. Sam and I talk for as long as he has time, then I bring my dishes into the kitchen and head for a shower. I’m not sure how long I stand in there, letting the hot water seep down into my bones like a protective layer to keep me warm for when I finally do face the outside. But when I get out, Dean is in the living room.
“You’re back,” I observe.
“I am,” he replies, reaching for the coffee cup he has sitting on the table in front of him.
“Should I chalk up your ability to break into my house as one of your many illustrious private investigator skills?” I ask half-serious.
“No,” he shrugs, continuing to scroll through something on his tablet without even looking at me. “You should chalk it up to Bellamy making me a copy of her extra key this morning.”
“Perhaps not the most responsible thing to be out doing while I’m trying to avoid a serial killer,” I point out.
This makes him lift his eyes to me.
“Do you think I have anything to do with it?” he asks.
“No,” I tell him.
His eyes sink back to his tablet screen.
“Then you don’t have anything to worry about,” he says.
There are several fallacies in his thought process there, but I choose not to point them out. The truth is, I trust Dean. That was far from my mind when I first met him on the train, and again when I encountered him in Feathered Nest, but he’s proven himself both reliable and valuable. And I can’t overlook everything we have in common and the scars we both share. It’s something other people can’t understand, no matter how much they want to, and that makes me want to keep him close. I go into the kitchen and pour another cup of coffee from the fresh pot he brewed when he came in.
“Where were you last night?” I ask as I walk into the living room.
“In a hotel,” he says. “There were some things I needed to get done, and I didn’t want to be in your way or keep you up. I tend to get very little sleep when I’m invested in something.”
I let out a short laugh and settle into the chair next to the couch, pulling my legs up, so I’m curled against the back with my cup cradled between my palms.
“That sounds so much like my father,” I tell him. “I can remember when I was younger, my mom having to try to force him to sleep. He’d be up all night working on cases, and she would go into his office, take his glasses off and pull him out of the chair to bring him off to bed. Sometimes he would tell her he wanted a drink of water or forgot to turn the light off and sneak back in for another few minutes. She would tell him he was worse than a toddler.”
Dean offers only
