Page 110 of Killing Mind
‘How about you, family problems bring you here?’
Tiff thought about the boss’s earlier text message. It had been brief and immediate.
Find Sophie.
So far, despite searching the faces of everyone who passed her by she had not yet seen Samantha’s sister.
Tiff nodded. ‘And I thought my friend might be here. You might know her. Her name is Sophie. Sophie Brown.’
Sheila’s face hardened as she glanced around the room.
‘You must be mistaken. There’s no one here named Sophie.’
Tiff felt a tremble in her hand. Total denial of someone’s existence.
From what she understood, that only happened if the person was gone or dead.
Eighty-Seven
‘Okay, husband, what’s wrong?’ Jenny asked, peering at him over his glasses.
‘Nothing,’ Bryant replied. ‘I’m fine.’
‘No, you’re not. You’ve barely spoken since you came home and the big guys in black just scored a goal and you never even…’
‘It’s a try,’ he responded automatically. As she well knew.
Her mouth twitched. ‘Well, you wannatrybeing honest with your wife about why you’ve been staring at Laura’s photo for the last twenty minutes instead of watching the game I recorded…’
‘Match,’ he corrected.
‘Whatever,’ she said, putting her craft tray to the side. She’d recently discovered something called diamond painting, which involved a sticky canvas and hundreds of tiny little glittery stones. Some of the buggers managed to escape and constantly winked at him from the carpet.
‘Cuppa?’ she said.
‘Yes, please,’ he answered.
‘No, I meant do you want to make one?’
‘Yeah, I’ll go…’
‘Oh, jeez, it must be serious,’ she said, removing her glasses completely. ‘You never make a drink after ten.’
‘Jenny, are you trying to…’
‘I’m trying to get you to see how distracted you are. Now I know it’s not your current case because anything bothering you on that score you would have taken over to chew on with Kim. So, it has to be this Peter Drake business.’
She was right, it was, but what he couldn’t fathom was why it was still on his mind.
When he worked a case with the guv there was a nervous tension that burrowed its way into his stomach. It seesawed between trepidation, excitement, anxiety and hope. It was neither pleasant nor unpleasant. It just was. There was little consistency except for one thing. Once they made an arrest the feeling went away. His stomach settled until the next major crime scene. But with Peter Drake it hadn’t yet gone away.
‘Okay, I have three theories,’ Jenny said, tucking her legs beneath her.
‘Only three?’ he joked.
‘My first is that it’s all happened so quickly you’re waiting for your emotions to catch up with you. Ooh, actually I have four theories.’
Bryant laughed out loud.
