“Always is.”
“Marc can’t continue to hurt me unless I allow it. I’m letting him do that, and he’s vanished, as far as we can tell. Right?”
“Another town. Another target. They don’t change.” He shrugged. “Probably, another clever name.”
“Like Conway, maybe?” Natalie teased, taking a page from his book on Marc’s name being an intentional warning.
His eyes twinkled when he laughed. “Yeah. Conway would be a pretty good one. Sorry. It was a bad joke. Occupational hazard I guess.”
“It was actually kind of funny. Maybe the best lead yet. I might start calling him Swindle instead of Swindell myself.”
“It’s fitting.” He got up and reached for her cup. “Are you done?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
He tossed both cups in the trash bin. “Look, I know you’re hurt, but I wasn’t kidding when I said I look forward to your drop-in visits to the station. I’ll of course keep you up to date on the case.”
“I know you will.”
“This might seem inappropriate, but I’m just going to lay it out there anyway. Do you think maybe we could do dinner sometime?”
“Why? Because you’ve seen me at my finest?” He’d seen her at her worst. He’d insisted she call him Randy, but she’d stuck to her guns calling him Detective Fellowes. No sense risking falling for another good-looking guy on the heels of the big con. Which was unfair, because she knew he was no con. She still believed that Randy Fellowes was one of the good guys. “You don’t have to feel sorry for this victim.”
“No, Natalie. That’s not it. This was nice, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah—”
“I asked you to dinner because I enjoy your company. You’re beautiful and nice, and it’s a shame that someone would take advantage of that when honestly it’s not a quality that’s easy to find in people these days.”
“I guess your worldview becomes a little jaded seeing the bad side of everyone in your line of work.”
“It doesn’t help, but I keep my focus on the right things. It’s a good world. It’s just that the rotten people overshadow the good stuff sometimes. And if you’ll have dinner with me I’ll put someone else on lead on this case, and just make sure it doesn’t go cold.”
“I’m sure you’re getting a hard time over me pressing on about this.”
“I am, but it doesn’t matter. Maybe someone else will come forward, and together you might both get justice. My guess is the money is long gone or well hidden. I’m not sure how they could untangle ownership if he’s trading things in as fast as he did with you. But you’d have to feel better that he couldn’t do it again.”
“I would.” She sucked in a breath. “I wish I had the guts to do it, but I’m very private with my life. You know, I don’t have any family, and maybe that has something to do with how hard it is for me to let other people in. It was one of the things that my husband and I had in common. He was really private like me.”
“I like your company.”
She got up and they started walking back toward the police station with that last comment hanging in the air until they reached the parking lot.
“Thanks for the dinner invitation,” she said. “A different time and circumstance, well… thank you, but I need to pull myself together. That needs to be my focus right now. Thank you for helping me realize that.”
“The invitation stands. You’ve got my number.”
“I know it by heart.”
“You should,” he said with a smile. “I’m kind of glad you do. Move forward. You can still visit me. We can do coffee. That’d be good. Or just stop in to say hello. Even better.”
“Or maybe that’s just part of the cycle I need to break.”
He stopped and turned to her. “I don’t want to be part of the cycle you break.”
His eyes locked onto hers, and she thought he was going to say something else, but he didn’t.
“Thank you for saying the right things. It’s a little hard to hear, but I know you’re right.” She was parked on the next row. She lifted her hand in a finger wave. “I’m parked here. Thanks for the coffee, and therapy session.”
