Page 2 of Vanishing Point
Thomas drained his plastic cup of the grape soda he didn’t particularly like and stood. “Well, that’s my cue to leave.”
Laurel scowled at him. “She’s nice.”
“I’m sure she’s great. I don’t want you setting me up, Laurel.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re a nosy boundary-pusher?” Grady offered lazily, Cary still asleep in the crook of his arm. He grinned at his wife.
Laurel turned the scowl on her husband, but then back to Thomas again. “You’ll never find someone if you don’t put yourself out there.”
“Maybe I don’t want to find someone.”
Laurel gave him a look—much like the disdainful one her daughter had aimed at him when he’d first arrived. It made him smile. But not so much he also didn’t make a break for it.
But Laurel followed. “Tell me about the case.”
“No.”
She groaned. “I know they gave Beckett my spot. If you’re working late, it’s a doozy.”
“It’s fine.” He made it to the door.
“Is it because Beckett’s a lousy detective?”
It was Thomas’s turn to give her a disparaging look, though he recognized what this wasreallyabout. “You worried he’s going to keep it when you come back?”
She smiled sweetly, but he’d seen her give that smile to enough criminals for Thomas to know it wasn’tkind. “He can try.”
Thomas laughed. “Take it easy, Laurel. Enjoy that last month.”
She grumbled something, but he made it outside. Fresh air. Blessed quiet. Now he could go home and sleep. And he’d been right, all in all. All that family, those kids, birthday cake and happiness had washed some of the ugliness the case they were working on had left on him.
He drove off the Delaney-Carson property and headed home. He’d lived above the post office for years, but last year had finally sucked it up and bought a house. It was small, fit for a single guywho wasn’t a spring chicken anymore. And it helped to not live over a business when he was trying to sleep off a night shift.
But it meant driving back through town, to get over to the residential area he lived in. He drove down Main, but slowed as he spotted a woman standing outside the general store, peering into the windows.
The store was closed, and the area around it was dark. He doubted she was trying to steal anything but it was hard to know for sure. He parked his car, then got out. He heard a baby crying, and realized the woman was holding a bundle.
He approached, thoughts of burglary turning into concern.
The woman turned as though she’d heard or sensed someone approach, the squalling baby in her arms. He saw the fear in her expression, so he stopped his forward movement and didn’t step any closer.
He didn’t recognize her, and as a lifelong resident of Bent, and a police officer in Bent County for over a decade, he knew most of the locals.
He held up one hand in a kind of surrender, used the other to pull his badge out of his pocket. “I’m a local police officer, ma’am. Can I help you with something?”
None of the fear left her face. In fact, she looked even more tense. But there was something…familiar underneath all that anxiety. He squinted, stepped a little closer without meaning to—but the light was better the closer he got.
“Vi?” He didn’t mean to say it out loud, because he was certain he must be…making things up. It had been something like fifteen years since he’d seen Vi Reynolds. And maybe she’d occupied most of his growing-up years, and still that soft first-love place in his heart, but there’d be no reason for grown-up Vi to be here now.
She’d left Bent a long time ago, and she didn’t have any family left nearby that he remembered. Maybe some cousins orsomething, but notinBent, and no one she was close to. Or had been.
But…
“Thomas,” she said after several quiet moments ticked by. “You… You look different.”
“God, I hope so. I think I weighed a buck ten soaking wet the last time I saw you.”
