Page 22 of Last Seen
He has a nice face to look at. Square jaw, beard scruff, thick hair that has been recently shorn into a much more professional look than when she first met him. They’d slammed into one another at the 9:30 Club, literally slammed, dancing to the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. It was her first show back in her last year of grad school, and she’d practicallyfallen into the arms of this huge man with a thick shock of shaggy black hair and vivid blue eyes. Her first thought: musician—which he was, a bassist, lapsed—but he was just there to enjoy the show. They hung out all the rest of the night, avoiding the sticky spots, playing six degrees of separation, the DC version—do you know X, no but I know Y knows her, and she knows Z, hell, Z is my roommate—and things took their natural course from there. He was a year older and had just gotten started at ATF as a junior agent. Luckily, he was stationed in DC. And his GS-7 salary meant they were able to have some fun. They dated their way through the shows, and she saved each ticket in a special envelope, knowing that this might be an important relationship that she would want markers for. She had every ticket from every show she’d ever seen in a scrapbook on the shelf in her empty room in DC. Music is her passion, almost as important to her as evidence collection. They both took levels of excellence and precision that many people didn’t have the patience for.
“Hey—” She bites back thebabethat normally follows. She has to keep this professional, or she’ll fall right back into his arms and spend the rest of her life seething with resentment. That won’t be good for either of them.
“Hey,” Theo says, then clicks his tongue. “Charlie, c’mere, boy.”
The blue-eyed husky traces onto the screen. Seeing her face, he turns in happy circles, baying hello.
“Hi to you, too, Charlie.”
“You okay, Halley? You look tired.”
“I am. It’s been a rough twenty-four hours. Are you okay?”
He smiles, a quick flash of white in his tanned face, and she sees a deep scratch on his cheek. He gestures to it. “It’s nothing. A fifty-cal kicked back on me. I’ll tell you all about it later. Let’s worry about you first.”
Interested in the commotion, the cat leaps onto the desk and sticks his nose in her ear. “That cat has gotten even bigger since I saw him last.”
“I don’t disagree. I think he has some Maine coon in him, but Dad’s clearly been indulging him.” She tries stuffing him into her lap, only manages to get half of him, so he has his paws on the keyboard like he’s typing. “Ailuros likes to be seen. Hope you don’t mind.”
“It’s good to seeyou,” he says softly.
This is why it’s taken her so long to leave. Because he gets that look in his eyes. It would be so much easier if he’d cheated on her or beat her. Wasted their money on booze or gambling. Anything else but this tearing apart of her soul because they can’t agree on the most basic covenant of their marriage. His reasoning—his job is too dangerous, he doesn’t want to orphan a kid like his dad orphaned him—has never felt completely right to her. Like he’s hiding something, holding back the whole truth.
Maybe it’s just that some dreams are harder to give up than others.
Keep it business, Halley. Don’t do this to yourself, and don’t do it to him. You settled this mess when you left. He isn’t going to change his mind.
“Don’t. Please. Not now. I don’t want to fight. Were you able to get anything?”
He shifts in his leather desk chair, which makes a familiar squeak of protest. Charlie flops on his fleece bed on the other side of the office; she can see his tail wagging. It is surreal to be a voyeur into her own home.Not your home anymore, Halley.
Theo taps his hand on a file. “I was. How much do you want?”
“I want it all.”
“There’s autopsy photos and crime scene stuff. I don’t know—”
“I’ve seen my fair share of those over the years.”
“This is different. It’s your mom. I’m not saying you aren’t professional as hell, but it’s ... it’s not pretty, Hal.”
“I expect it’s pretty horrible. But how else am I going to figure this out? I need to repopulate my memory. I can’t explain the dislocation I’m feeling right now. Everything I’ve thought and believed about myself is gone. I’m a stranger.”
“You’re you, Halley. That will never change. You’re just filling in some blanks, that’s all.”
“Seeing the crime scene photos will do that, I think. Don’t you? It could trigger some memories. I don’t have anything accurate from that day.”
“Maybe.” He sighs. “I’ve pulled together a package for you, including the postmortem report and some of the notes.”
“The murder book?” Halley asks hopefully.
“I can’t get the murder book. You’ll need to go begging to the Nashville police for that. There’s quite a bit of information in the postmortem report, though. I’ll email what I have here, and FedEx the rest. You’ll have the hard copies in the morning.”
She hears the whoosh that indicates an email has been sent, and opens her inbox, waiting impatiently for the message to come through. A ding, and it’s there.
“Thank you, Theo. I owe you one.”
He touches his forehead, his chin, his heart. Glances to the side at the dog. She hears the song in the background shift to the Smiths. She recognizes he needs to say something and is holding himself back. A small buzz starts in her chest. Is he going to change his mind? Is he going to tell her what she’s been dying to hear for years?
