When I moved out of the apartment I’d shared with my ex-fiancé into McIntyre’s place in nearby Watertown, she made a point of telling me she wouldn’t push it. Talk when you’re ready, she’d said, just as she had in July when, brand-new to the job, I’d opted not to tell my closest colleague about my variegated past. She hadn’t forced me to share my secret pain with anyone. This was more of the same.
The chin-up routine Mac kept rehashing had to do with my ex, and the betrayal I endured by his hand. Despite her intuition, though, Carson Gates was the last thing on my mind. The thin line on my fourth finger, left behind by my engagement ring, was proof I’d once loved him. Soon that would be gone.
No, Carson wasn’t the reason why—as McIntyre dove into a story about the couple who spent an hour in her office arguing the innocence of the four Watertown officials accused of misconduct—I couldn’t stop sizing up every man in the room. That one with the wife and kids is too short, but his gaze cut to me twice after he sat down, and his voice when he ordered sounded tight for a Saturday morning. The guy who just walked in with his girlfriend is the right height and build, but the features are off. My eyes lingered on the stranger’s face anyway. With a prosthetic nose and some liquid latex, available online for less than twenty bucks, it would be a convincing disguise.
Beyond the covered deck where we sat, wind raced toward us across the river and assailed the clear plastic flaps that enclosed the outdoor seating area. When the man caught me staring and his mouth crimped at the sight of my scar, I couldn’t help but go rigid. For half my life I’d looked in the mirror at the skinny white mark that ran from the crook of my mouth all the way to my left ear, yet I often forgot it was there until I saw it reflected in someone else’s expression of distaste.
I turned my attention back to my plate to find I’d finished off my breakfast without realizing it. Stress-eating session complete, I surveyed the St. Lawrence River. Nelly’s shouldn’t have been open this late in the season, but unusually high temps had convinced the owner to push on. Our luck was running out. With a cold front on the way, Nelly’s was about to trade those patio flaps for plywood boards until next summer. There was no more pretending it was fall. The lusterless sun and biting breeze added up to one conclusion. Winter was on its way.
I swallowed the dregs of my coffee in one bitter gulp and said, “I’ll miss this place.”
“Ah.” Mac drew the word into a sigh. “I keep forgetting you’re still a newbie. You’re not used to it yet, but this is how things are around here.”
“Temporary?”
“Cyclical. When the tourists pack up, all that’s left is us townies. Not enough folk to support the local economy, including, sadly, places like this. But come late spring, everything will open up again. New season, fresh start. You’ll see.”
I nodded. Spring was months away. Where would I be by then? I honestly didn’t know.
“Don’t look now,” Mac said, “but we’ve got company.”
Every hair on my freckled forearms lifted, and it took an embarrassingly long time for me to realize Mac was grinning over my shoulder. I turned to see yet another man striding across the restaurant, this one carrying two mugs of coffee from the self-serve counter near the entrance.
I hadn’t seen much of Tim Wellington in recent weeks, with my suspension and the therapy sessions I was required to complete, plus the fact that I was actively avoiding him. The sight of him trying not to dribble coffee onto the floor made me smile, but the corners of my mouth quickly fell back into place. Tim wasn’t alone.
“Sheriff.” He shook McIntyre’s hand. Then, “Long time, Shane.”
The nickname, a reference to an old western movie, was starting to grow on me. I considered grumbling about it anyway, for old times’ sake, but my gaze slid to the woman by his side. I didn’t recognize her. She was in her early thirties like Tim and had a small face and perfectly round eyes, not unlike those of a creepy Victorian doll. She accepted one of the coffees from Tim and their hands brushed for an instant before she curled hers around the mug. Eight a.m. on a Saturday morning’s a strange time for a date, I thought. Tim was keeping a respectable distance, but his cheeks were pinker than usual, and there was stubble on his jaw. Not a date, then. Just breakfast.
Well, well. Good for Tim.
As happy as I was to see him, I wasn’t happy to see him now. I’d intended to deal with my demons and arrive back at the station the detective I was before Tim, before Carson, and most importantly, before Blake Bram. I didn’t want any of my investigators asking me how I was doing, especially not this one. Especially not in front of a doll-faced woman and Mac.
“This is Kelsea,” Tim said. The woman rattled off a greeting, commented on the unseasonal weather. A local, like Tim. When she was done, Tim turned to me. “Looks like you need a refill. I’ll come with.”
I eyeballed his fresh pour, fragrant and steaming in his hand, and the woman he was about to abandon. “Right,” I said, getting to my feet.
We left Kelsea with Mac and made our way into the anteroom, where we found the coffee bar unoccupied. Tim, who hadn’t thought to leave his overfilled mug behind, cursed under his breath as the hot drink sloshed onto his wrist.
“It’s good to see you,” he said, grabbing a wad of paper napkins as I reached past the thermal carafe of decaf for the good stuff. “That’s looking better.”
He was talking about my hand. The burns I’d sustained during my last case, caused by a pot of boiling water and a troubled teenage girl, were healing well. Before I could make a joke about swearing off cooking for life, Tim said, “How are things?”
“Good. Things are good.”
He raised his thick eyebrows. “Well? When is it?”
So this was why he wanted to talk. “What, my fitness-for-duty psych eval? That old thing?” I stirred cream into my coffee, licked the straw. “Next week.”
“And you feel ready?”
“It’s not the SATs.”
“No, I know, I just—you’ve been slacking off long enough, is all. I could really use a hand back at the station.”
As the senior investigator for our unit, I head up our team. All the guys answer to me. But the time Tim and I spent on Tern Island investigating the Sinclair family altered the dynamic between us, and with a pang of regret, I realized how much I’d missed our special brand of repartee. “Been busy, have you?” I said. I meant it as a joke—A-Bay in the off-season is as action-packed as a grade school in summer—but Tim’s face lit up.
“You have no idea. Last Thursday? We had a drug deal go south in a hurry, this divorced couple fighting over who gets to keep the clients. The hubby goes out to sell from their mutual stash and his wife tips me off, failing to realize she’s implicating herself in the process.”