Page 16 of When You're Safe

The sun gleamed through thewindscreen, but Finn’s sunglasses shielded him from the glare. Up ahead, he couldsee Winters’s car moving with purpose through the English countryside.

Finn’s mind was racing, too, andthe coffee he’d had in the morning with his lawyer was still coursing through hisveins. As he passed yet another sign for St. Albans, Finn’s mind was playingthe floor is lava with several islands of worry.

Demi’s offer for reconciliation.He’d hop onto that for a moment, thinking about her. For a brief second, thethought of her felt like a warm blanket, and he sat in the memory of a stolenkiss with her on a vacation several years back beneath an old bridge on a rainyday. Then the ugly specter of her betrayal rose up.

Did I chase her into the armsof another man? he wondered. He didn’t know whether to love or loathe her.A little of both was his guess.

He hated being conflicted, butFinn had always had conflict bubbling deep down beneath his calm exterior. He’dhad it when he was a poor kid in Florida trying to get out of a town thatstigmatized him for being from the wrong side of the tracks. But that town wasstill home, and he often thought of it with a smile, too.

“You’re full of contradictions, pal,”he said out loud to himself. “And talking to yourself, as well. That’s one stepaway from a straitjacket. Buckle up, I guess.”

He leaned over and turned theradio on. A pop song that melted into all the other generic music he’d heardrecently played. He had no idea who the artist was, but she sounded likecountless others. He was almost thankful when the reception cut out and theradio struggled to find the station again.

Nothing worked in the rental as itshould have, and had he not been on a case, he’d have driven back to thedealership and asked for his money back. He was trying to keep up and felt thecar struggling.

Amelia Winters was driving ahead,and she had just taken a turn off the current road.

Finn followed the car closely andthen watched as the rolling hills, only an hour’s drive from London, parted, revealinga startling sight. St. Albans looked like something out of a Charles Dickensnovel. The streets were old and even cobbled in places. They wound around thesmall basin where the town sat, coiling like a snake. On either side, thestreets were flanked by cozy white cottages with red slated gambrel roofs.

Finn half expected to see theresidents moving around town on horseback, but the old English facade of theplace was joined by the occasional twenty-first-century apartment building andcars grumbling through the strange timelessness of it all.

Pulling up in a small parking lotbeside an old, white-walled pub, Finn got out and saw Winters already standing therewaiting for him. She had put her hair up into a bun while waiting.

He continually tried to ignore herbeauty. It wasn’t conducive to a good working relationship and he knew that. Healso knew that he was in a fragile place, more fragile than he liked to admit,even to himself. His career in the FBI and his love life both hung by a thread.Falling for his partner would have been all too easy, and so he had to givehimself a shake to make certain it wouldn’t happen.

“Did someone cut your hair fromthe backseat?” Finn joked.

“No,” Winters sighed. “I haven’thad a chance to get my hair trimmed recently and it gets in my eyes sometimes.So I put it up.”

“Happens to me, too, so don’tworry about it,” Finn said.

“Your hair gets in your eyes?”Winters asked with a puzzled expression.

“No,” he said. “But I get in women’seyes all the time. I have to keep telling them. Stop looking. I’m a humanbeing, not a piece of meat. Hands off, ladies.”

Winters rolled her eyes. “Youreally think a lot of yourself, don’t you, Finn?”

“Someone has to,” he said, thewords just slipping out. “So where are we heading now?”

Winters looked down at her phone. “DevonLangdon’s business address is this pub, bizarrely.”

Finn turned his attention to it.The warped white-painted walls spoke of centuries of use, and above a smallopen door, a swinging wooden sign squeaked slightly in the summer breeze. Onthe sign was an old painted black dog baring its teeth on a hill and the words “TheGrim Dog” in antiquated black writing.

“Do all old English pubs have suchwelcoming names?” Finn asked.

“Yes,” Winters said, walking pasthim with a smile toward the open doorway. “It’s good to put off undesirables.”

“I’m not undesirable.”

Winters laughed. “Keep tellingyourself that, Finn. Come on.”

Finn liked the back and forth withWinters, but it was time to put his game face on. Devon Langdon had motive andconnections to both victims, and Finn was hopeful for a quick resolution to thecase. Then he could turn his attention to deciding whether to return to the USor not.

Stepping through the doorwaybehind Winters, Finn felt like he had been transported further back in time.The pub interior was almost entirely made of wood. Floorboards groaned, and thebeams overhead had warped to such a degree that Finn didn’t quite trust them tohold up the ceiling above. A couple of the drinkers in the place were sittingalone. A few sat together at a table discussing something amongst themselves.

The air was thick with the smellof stale beer, no doubt spilled somewhere, congealing in the afternoon heat.

“I’ll keep an eye on the exit,”Finn said quietly, wondering if Devon Langdon was among the handful of patronsin the dimly lit old pub.

---