Nineteen-seventy-seven sounded right. She’d been born a couple of years later and he looked roughly her age – further proving he wasn’t who she’d thought. Where was the joke?
She realized. “Oh, happy birthday.”
He leaned back. “No need to throw me a party, honey. Every day’s my birthday.”
His mocking grin hit her right in the belly.
She pressed back and crossed her arms over her uniformed chest. “Officer.”
“What?”
“It’s officer, not honey.”
He rolled his eyes and then raised his palms towards her. “Look,officer,I’m no chauvinist pig. I think it’s cool they’re letting chicks carry guns these days. Just trying to be friendly.”
Friendly, my ass.“Look. You’re in some serious shit here. You assaulted my partner.”
“Your partner’s a pig.”
Hard to argue with that one. She chewed the inside of her lip to keep from smiling.
“Listen, Mr Reddick. I get the feeling you’re not really such a bad guy, and I’d love to help you get into a shelter, or send you home to grovel to your wife, or whoever tossed you out on your ass last night, but for some reason you seem hell-bent on making me regret helping you. Do you want to spend the next couple of months in lock-up?”
He shrugged.
She leaned on to the desk. “We’re real backed up right now. It’ll be ages before you see the inside of a courtroom.”
He cocked up one eyebrow. “Do what you want. I know exactly where I’ll be tomorrow at dawn and it won’t be in your jail cell. Iguaran-damn-teeit.”
“Oh, really. You think I won’t do it, don’t you?” He’d read her like a book. She hated that.
Hand in his pocket, he pressed a sharp edge up and into the fabric of his slacks.
Heart racing, Kara stood, squared her stance and moved onehand to her weapon. “Empty your pockets. Now.” She was off her game not doing this sooner.
He shrugged and dug into his blazer to come up with a gold lighter and a pack of gum from one, a crumpled envelope and a small key from the other. The gum’s label said “Wrigley”, but must’ve been bought overseas, because it was unlike any pack she’d ever seen. She kept her hand over her gun as he dug into his pants pocket and then slapped a handful of bills and coins on to the desk. Three one-dollar bills, but something was off. Counterfeits? Maybe. Not recently issued bills, that’s for sure.
“The other pocket.”
He pulled out a necklace and let it dangle for a moment before dropping it to the metal desktop. The enamelled butterfly pendant hit with a clink, and then the chain snaked around it like sand falling in slow motion.
Goosebumps erupted on every inch of her body. “Where’d you get the necklace?”
“From a kid in the park – teenaged runaway.”
The air rushed from her lungs and she squeezed her muscles to hinder the earthquake emanating from deep in her bones. She shook her head to dislodge the impossible conclusions scrambling to take hold.
His eyes widened. That they quickly snapped back to indifference didn’t matter. The few seconds of intense recognition, of wonder in his eyes, had swept her from the squad room and back in time. Back to a day in 1994 she’d started to think she’d imagined.
She was imagining this.
“Get out of here.” It wasn’t him, and if it was, he was fucking with her.
“What? No jail?” His pissed-off tone fuelled her confusion-induced anger.
She pointed towards the entrance. “Out. Now.”
As she watched him stuff his possessions into his pockets and walk away, her mind, her whole body, felt as if she’d been set in a paint mixer.
