Page 25 of The Wild Charge

Reese glanced over, startled, met with Tenny’s once-again unreadable profile. His sweat-damp, tousled hair was the only sign they’d just brought each other off in the attic of a barn. “Do you? Want to live here?”

Tenny shrugged. “It’s quiet. Wouldn’t have to put up with all those idiot prospects all the time.” When he turned his head to meet his gaze, Reese was surprised again by the way his expression shifted from unreadable to strangely vulnerable. He grinned, teeth white and straight, but his eyes held traces of doubt. “Would you come visit me?”

“If you wanted me to.”

Tenny rolled his eyes and turned away, but his smile seemed a little truer, his gaze a little lighter. “What do you want to eat?”

“Burgers.”

Tenny nodded, and stood, cigarette clenched between his teeth as he reached for his bag. “Sounds good.”

Tenny checked his reflection in the mirror, gave Reese a quick once-over, and then nodded before they headed down the stairs. “Let me say bye to Emmie.” He went down to the office, and when he returned a few minutes later, his expression looked careful, and his cheeks looked pink in the fading sunlight.

“What?” Reese asked.

“I’m a loud idiot, that’s what,” Tenny muttered, without real heat.

“Why?”

Tenny shook his head, and straddled his bike.

Thirty minutes later, they set plastic trays loaded with burgers, fries, and Cokes down on a patio table at Freddy’s.

Tenny dragged three fries together through ketchup, crammed them in his mouth, and spoke around them. “This trip is absolute bollocks.”

Reese swallowed his bite of burger and, with an inward twinge of guilt, said, “Yeah.”

Tenny’s eyes bugged comically wide. “What’s this: you’reagreeingwith me?” His gaze took on a wickedly amused gleam.

Reese could feel himself frowning. “Ghost and Fox want us to learn other skills. Interviewing the girl’s mother will–”

“No, no, don’t spoil it. You said it was bollocks.”

“No. I said ‘yeah.’”

Tenny snorted, his grin fond. “But itisbollocks. I can play any role they can throw at me, same as Fox. I can pat the woman’s hand, and tell her it’ll be alright, and give her Kleenex when she gets all snotty…”

Reese sent him a disapproving look.

“I like you better when you’re agreeing with me,” Tenny said, as an aside, then continued. “But what good does that do? If Abacus really got the girl, then she’s gone. Probably in New York already. That’s where we need to go, you and me. That’s where we’ll be useful. Let someone else do the consoling bit instead of us.” He punctuated this with a massive bite of burger.

Reese took a bite of his own, thinking. Tenny wasn’t wrong: if tasks were being divvied up according to skill levels and suitability, sending the two of them to Alabama to interview a woman whose daughter had gone missing was a waste of resources.

He took a sip of Coke and said, “Maybe there’s more to it. Something Fox isn’t telling us.”

“Oh, that’s a great way to welcome us to the club: withholding information.”

“Luis gave us names,” Reese said, his frown, and unease, deepening. “Why not send us after them?”

Tenny nodded. “See? That’s what I mean. Quick, simple hits. Nothing we haven’t done before.”

They chewed in silence for a while, each lost in thought.

Reese was gathering breath to offer another theory, thinking that maybe Ghost and the other officers were already finding gaps in Luis’s story, when Tenny shrugged and said, “Oh well.” He took a long sip of soda and gazed off across the parking lot, a cool breeze tumbling a few stray napkins along the pavement. “Be nice to get away for a bit.”

Reese stared at him, floored.

Tenny seemed…but surely not…but he seemed like he was…in a good mood.

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