Page 6 of The Couple's Secret
Turner stood and walked around until he was standing in front of her. He towered over her. Amusement danced in his eyes but now, having worked together for a year, Josie noted the tiny flicker of something else. It lasted the span of a heartbeat. Pain? Vulnerability? She couldn’t tell.
“Seriously,” she said. “How do you know this stuff?”
He pulled out a crumpled dollar bill from his jacket pocket. “After-school special, sweetheart.”
With that, he stepped to the side and stuffed the dollar into a money-packed jar on Josie’s desk. Noah had instituted the jar system shortly after Turner joined the team. It was a form of operant conditioning, he’d explained. Behavior that was punished was less likely to occur in the future. Well, that was the hope. Every time Turner called Josie “sweetheart” or “honey,” he had to place a dollar in her jar. Any time he made an inappropriate comment, he owed her a dollar. He owed Gretchen a dollar whenever he called her “Parker” instead of her actual name, Palmer. It worked both ways. If Josie called him a douchebag to his face, she put a dollar in his jar. Same with Gretchen, though her preferred name for him was “jackass.”
These days, the dollars were far more likely to find their way into a jar when one of them intentionally broke the rules, like Turner just had.
Like Gretchen did as she sailed through the door, a cupholder in one hand and a dollar in the other. As she passed Turner, she slapped it into his waiting hand. “Afternoon, jackass.”
He grinned at her back. “Detective Palmer, you’re in a fine mood today.”
Gretchen didn’t spare him a glance as she settled behind her desk, handing a coffee across to Josie. “I’ll be in a better mood when you get out of here. Let the real police handle shit.”
It was the most pleasant these two had ever been to one another.
Turner studied the bill thoughtfully and Josie knew he was weighing his options. Poke the bear or stand down?
Noah cleared his throat, drawing Turner’s attention. “Take the money, Detective.”
Gretchen didn’t acknowledge any of it. She booted up her computer and took her reading glasses from the top of her head where they were frequently nestled in her short, spiked brown and gray hair.
Josie folded her arms across her chest. “Or tell us where all this insight into the hearts of teenagers really came from.”
Turner stuffed the bill into his pocket and gave her a blinding smile, followed by a wink. “Nah. I’ve got to maintain my air of mystery. How else am I gonna get you to hang on my every word, Quinn?”
Before she could respond, he turned and sauntered off, disappearing into the stairwell.
“Good riddance,” Gretchen muttered.
“Well,” said Noah. “I guess I’m giving the report myself.”
He gave them a rundown of all pertinent information, then handed Josie a file. “I didn’t have a chance to go speak with this woman, so if you can get out to her place and take down her statement, grab any documents or anything else she’s got, that’d be great.”
Josie cracked it open, immediately recognizing the name. The poor woman had a stalker—one savvy enough to be untraceable thanks to modern technology. She’d been contacting police and documenting everything for the past year.
“We’ll go see her first thing,” Josie said.
Noah stood and took her hand, squeezing it. He was headed home now that she was on duty. They’d been working a lot of opposite shifts to ensure that one of them was almost always at the house. “Want me to talk to Wren?”
What Josie wanted was to wrap her arms around his waist and bury her head in his chest. It was hard not to touch him whenever they were in the same room after what had happened last year, but they’d always been discreet at work. Still, with only Gretchen in the room, neither of them was worried about a little hand-holding and possibly a chaste kiss.
“No,” said Josie. “I need to be the one to do it. Just try to get a read on her, will you? She’s more likely to talk to you than me. I’m pretty positive she snuck into our room and went through my nightstand to read Dex’s letter. That also needs to be addressed.”
“I can do that,” he said. “It’s my room, too.”
“No. I need practice doing this whole guardian thing. Let me handle it. I’ll figure out how to talk to her but for now, can you just check in with her? I just want her to be okay.”
“I’ll do my best.” Noah pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Josie, we can do this, you know.”
She smiled, trying to look as though she believed him, but he saw right through that. Chuckling, he gave her one last, light kiss and whispered, “Just wait. Everything will work out.”
She wished she could be as optimistic as him.
Four
Josie pumped the brakes of her SUV in time to avoid running over a groundhog sauntering across the road. The stalking victim lived in northeast Denton, in a secluded development near the top of a mountain. Josie and Gretchen had finished taking her latest statement and headed back to the stationhouse, passing through a remote area of forest. With the rodent out of the way, she sped up, rounding a corner only to be confronted by the mother of all sun glare.
