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“What?”
“What we’re gonna say to Mom and Dad.”
Cassie groaned and buried her face in a throw pillow. “I don’t know. It’s going to be so weird going home.”
“You know they love you, even if things have been strained over the last couple years. It’s still Mom and Dad. They’ll be shocked to see us both on the doorstep, and then they’ll feed us too much food and try to do our laundry and send us both home with knickknacks we haven’t thought of in twenty-five years.”
“Honestly, that’s kind of what I’m afraid of. I don’t really want things to be normal.” Cassie smoothed out her hair as she tried to find the right words. “I want to talk to them about everything. About Novak. About what’s been going on in my life over the last ten years. I want to know more about Mom’s diagnosis.”
“What about the ghost thing?”
Cassie scrunched her nose. “Do I have to?”
“No, but if you want to know more about Sarah Lennox, Mom and Dad are the best place to start.”
“Do you think they’ll think I’m crazy?”
“I don’t know.” Laura tapped her lip with her pointer finger. “Mom will try to reason it away. Dad will go find something to fix until he’s thought about it long and hard and then he’ll say, ‘As long as you’re happy.’ And then they’ll never talk about it again.”
“You know, that’s our problem as Quinns. We don’t talk about anything. We keep it all inside until we burst or shove it down so deep, we can pretend we’re over it.”
“Hey.” Now it was Laura’s turn to clutch her pearls. “I thought I was the psychologist in the family.”
“No, but really.”
“I know. I know. It’s just something we’ll have to work on.” She looked over at Cassie. “Together.”
Cassie liked the sound of that. Together. It’d been a long time since she was together with her family. Seeing her sister and working out their issues was the first step, and now that they felt like a unit, Cassie felt a lot more comfortable talking to her parents about what had been going on inside her head over the last several years. She had to take responsibility for the role she played in forming distance between all of them. It would take a lot of time and patience to build their relationships back up to what they once were. But the best part?
She was more than ready to get started.
39
David knocked on Chief of Police Sandra Clementine’s door. The Chief, who had the phone cradled between her neck and shoulder, looked up and waved him inside. David shut the door behind him and sat down in a chair opposite her. The office smelled like oranges, and David’s eyes automatically flicked to the garbage can, where he spotted a discarded peel.
The Chief was an imposing woman, even when she was sitting down. She was a tall, muscular black woman who could’ve played professional sports but had chosen the badge and done a damn good job of it.
“I don’t need your excuses, Crawford, I just need you to do your job. Yes. Yes. Thank you.” Clementine hung up the phone with a huff and gave David a tight smile. “Between you and me? Crawford is a goddamn pain in my ass.”
“Mine, too, ma’am.”
Clementine scribbled something down on a piece of paper and then folded her hands in front of her, giving Da
vid her full attention. “The Shapiro case was a tough one. You did the best you could. Don’t hold onto the what-ifs.”
David shifted in his seat. Sometimes he thought the Chief could read minds. She had this uncanny ability to just look at a person and read them like a book. David liked to think he was good about keeping his emotions in check, but Clementine had always gotten past any walls he put up. He liked her more for that. She was a good cop and an even better Chief.
“I know. I’ll be okay. No need to worry about me.”
“Do I look worried?” She flashed a smile. “I don’t worry about you, anyway. I worry about dickheads like Crawford. Oh, did I say that out loud?”
“I didn’t hear a thing.” David’s smile faded. “There’s just a few more things I have to wrap up with the cold case, and then we can file it away.”
“I don’t think you came here to ask for a gold star.”
“No, ma’am.” David shifted in his seat again. He normally wasn’t the bashful type, but he didn’t like putting his nose where it didn’t belong. “I know this was a bit before your time—”
“I’m three years younger than you, Klein.”
