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“Good to know,” Reed had said with more than a bit of sarcasm.
“You realize she’s a pain in the butt, right? That she could have messed up the investigation.”
He hadn’t argued.
Delacroix had glared at him. “And it’s a good thing I followed her to the lodge. I probably saved her butt.”
Maybe.
Still, Reed had trouble understanding the woman who had lied about her identity, who had worked with, yet against him. Yeah, she’d had a vendetta against the person who had kidnapped her sisters and altered the path of her life, but she hadn’t needed to dupe everyone else involved.
Or had she?
The jury was still out on that, and he was certain she’d never be a cop again. But she was out of the department and when he went back, he’d be assigned yet another partner. Hopefully one who was a little more forthcoming. Make that a partner who was a lot more forthcoming and a lot less complicated.
He tried to convince himself that her intentions had been good.
But he still wasn’t certain.
Probably never would be.
He heard the rumble of a huge engine and looked up to spy the school bus lumbering down the street. It stopped in front of the apartment building, its doors opening with a screech. A handful of teenagers piled out, talking and laughing, one lone boy with a backpack, nose-deep in his cell phone, bringing up the rear.
Reed was out of the car and across the street in an instant. Toby Yelkis looked up from his phone.
“I think this belongs to you.” Reed tossed the e-cigarette to Toby Yelkis and the kid snatched it out of the air, pocketing it quickly, as if his dad might appear at any second.
“It’s not mine.” He shifted his backpack from one shoulder to the other as the big bus lumbered noisily away.
“Really?” Reed sent him a look of disbelief. Reed had been waiting for Morrisette’s kid and wanted to catch him alone, so he’d waited here, at the bus stop outside of the apartment building that Bart Yelkis called home. “It’s got your initials on it.” TY. After he’d gotten out of the hospital and found the Juul in his jeans pocket, he’d initially thought the e-cigarette was marked for Tyson Beaumont, but then he remembered Toby at his mother’s funeral, that he’d been limping, perhaps because Mikado had tried to take a chunk out of his calf when he’d been in the house.
“I said, ‘It’s not mine!’” He tilted his chin up belligerently and Reed noticed the peach fuzz on his jawline, acne breaking out over his nose. An awkward age. On the precipice of manhood, where the mistakes you made could haunt you for the rest of your life. Reed remembered.
“I just don’t understand why you broke into my house.”
“I didn’t.”
Reed sighed. “I’m a cop, Toby. Don’t bullshit me.”
“Dad says you want to take me and Priscilla away.”
“Nope.” Reed shook his head. “Wouldn’t do that, unless I thought you were being harmed, you know. Or in some kind of trouble.”
“We’re fine!” More defiance.
“Good.” Reed glanced up at the sky for a second, watched a crow land in a bare branch of the solitary pine. “So the next time you come over, knock.”
Toby glowered up at him and seemed not sure about what to say. “Your wife killed Mom.”
“No, Toby.” He met the kid’s angry eyes. “Your mother died in the line of duty.
My wife wasn’t making good choices that day, that’s true, but your mom, she did what she was trained to do and it was a horrid accident. If you want to know the truth, I miss her. Every day. And you do, too, but that doesn’t mean you break into someone’s house, even if it’s just to scare her, because you’re mad or hurting.”
“I . . . I . . .” Toby stared at the ground for a moment, dry leaves scattering with a gust of cool October air. “I never meant to hurt nobody.”
“I know that,” Reed said, his suspicions confirmed.
“So you’re not going to take us away.” He needed to hear it.
