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Tessa drew herself up in outrage. “Since when?”
“Since I can’t stop stressing about work and I’m obviously not fit company tonight. I’m sorry. I’ll call you later.”
She put her hands on her hips and glared at him.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, not much of an apology to offer as he grabbed his coat and left.
Tessa must not have thought it was much of an apology, either, because he heard her mutter, “Asshole,” just before the front door closed.
He should go back. He should apologize. But Luke felt so guilty that his body didn’t seem to fit inside his skin. He rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck, then headed straight back to the station.
How could he have been so insensitive about her love life? Of course she was closed off. She must’ve had a pretty ideal childhood until the day her parents had died. She’d been adrift afterward, surely…thrust into thinking about things other teenagers didn’t think about. Hell, when Luke had been fourteen, all he’d thought about was himself. And girls, but only when those girls had to do with him.
He also felt bad that he’d lashed out about the divorce. She couldn’t know how hard the divorce had hit him. She couldn’t know that it had both broken his heart and shamed him to his bones. He could try to explain it to her, but then she’d be ashamed for him, too, wouldn’t she? How could she accept that he’d been so bad at being a husband that Eve would’ve rather died alone than stay married to him? He’d felt… Jesus, he’d felt desecrated by the time he’d left California. How could he let Tessa see that?
But at the moment, his sharpest regret was having to lie to Tessa about Graham Kendall. He didn’t have anything solid yet. Just a fingerprint and a hunch. He could not tell the victim of a crime that an acquaintance might be responsible, not until he had proof. And he couldn’t blow up this deal without evidence.
Thank God she had good instincts. That alleviated some of his guilt, at least. She was sharp as hell, and she’d figured the important parts out for herself.
As Luke pulled into the station parking lot, he dialed Ben Jackson in Denver one last time. Ben hadn’t answered his phone all day, so Luke assumed he was off, but maybe he was pulling a night shift tonight. Or, like Luke, he could’ve come into the office to hide from personal trouble. It was a pretty common ploy among cops. Criminal investigations were problems that could be solved. Emotions were way more messy. It was so easy to tell yourself that solving a murder was more important than resolving an argument about the check book.
The call went to voice mail, so Luke hung up. Maybe Ben had figured out how to have a good life outside the job. Luke hoped he was getting there, too. It was easier in Boulder, which had been his main goal in coming here. Being a cop in L.A. had been too brutal. It separated you from everyone else. It had certainly separated him from his wife. Then again, according to her, they’d never been very tightly connected.
Christ, he had a headache, but he couldn’t blame that on his ex-wife. It was this damn case.
Graham Kendall ran a private jet company for rich men. By all accounts, he was rich himself. In addition to being president of Kendall Flight, he was on the board of the Kendall Group. So why would he be orchestrating local break-ins?
Determined to find out more about Graham Kendall, he called up the FBI’s national crime database for the third time that day. There wasn’t much on Kendall, but what did pop up was strange. A moving violation in Las Vegas, and another in Denver. Nothing unusual for a man who likely owned sports cars, but the fact that such minor infractions showed up on the national database…that made no sense. It was almost as if they’d once been associated with something else. An arrest. A warrant. Something that had been wiped from the system.
His cell rang, and Luke hoped it would be Tessa, but Ben’s name shone on the screen. “Speak of the devil,” Luke said when he answered.
“Sorry I missed you. I was interviewing a witness.”
Luke bit back the impulse to ask if it was a big murder investigation. Tessa had invaded his brain. “I think I’ve got a lead on our robberies.”
“Great!”
“Have you ever heard of a guy named Graham Kendall?” Luke listened closely in case Ben knew something he wasn’t planning to reveal, but he sounded relaxed when he answered.
“I don’t think so. You want me to check into something?”
“Yeah. I want everything you’ve got on the guy.” Luke handed over every relevant detail he had on Graham Kendall, then settled in for a long wait. He was just opening Google when his phone rang again. “That was quick.”
“I think you were expecting someone else,” his mom said.
“Oh, hey, Mom. How are you?”
She talked about her garden and her work as a part-time substitute. As usual, she brought up going back to work as a full-time teacher, and Luke did his best to talk her out of it. Then the conversation took a more significant turn. “So…how’s Tessa?”
He had to smile at the way his mom said Tessa’s name as if she knew her. “Fine.”
“Still seeing her?”
“A little,” he said, glancing up at the ceiling to brace for a lightning strike.
“Well, I’m sure she’s nice.”
“Funny, you don’t know anything about her.”
