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“Maybe.” She shrugged. “I don’t know. Ben and I, we…just weren’t suited to each other.”
“What was wrong?”
“What wasn’t.”
“Mmmm…”
“I don’t know why I married him,” she said, not wanting to sound completely bitter. “I wanted the dream, I guess. A husband. A family. Children. After we were married he would always tell everyone we didn’t want children, when he knew good and well that I did. I never knew what to say in front of people. I couldn’t really respond by saying, ‘No, my husband’s wrong. I do want kids. He’s lying. He just doesn’t want kids.’ I couldn’t figure out how to put that in words without starting a huge argument, so I said nothing. And then he got involved with someone else and he died in her arms. And she was pregnant when he died. So she has a baby now.” Becca stuffed her hands in the deep pockets of his jacket. She could feel him looking at her, but she couldn’t meet his gaze.
“You still want the dream?” he asked.
“Well, yes, but I don’t really expect it to happen.”
He seemed to want to ask her more questions, but in the end he let the conversation shift back to safer topics and entertained her with a story about how Tallulah had scraped him off her back using tree boughs and how he’d had to trudge home on a sore ankle only to find the mare waiting expectantly at her stall for her next meal, completely unrepentant.
Hudson snapped off the lights. As they returned to the house, skimming puddles and ducking against the rain, he said, “It’s strange, but all this stuff about Jessie seems to have brought us together again.”
“Yeah.” She half laughed. “Fairly ironic,” she said over the patter of the rain hitting the roof of the porch as they walked up the steps.
The phone was ringing as they walked back inside and Hudson let the answering machine pick up.
“This is Detective McNally,” a deep male voice said. “I’d still like that face-to-face meeting with you, Walker. Call me back.” He finished by leaving his number.
“Guess there’s no way out of it,” Hudson said, frowning as he stared at the phone.
“Maybe he has more information.”
“More likely he wants some.” But Hudson returned the call, catching McNally and agreeing to meet the detective the next day at a diner a couple of miles from the police station.
“An informal meeting, whatever the hell that means,” he said, reaching into the fridge for another beer. “Want to come with me?”
“Hell, no. But I’m sure my name’s on that list somewhere, too, so…”
“Then it’s a date,” he said.
She laughed as she exchanged his jacket for her coat in the front hallway. “You, me, and Detective McNally.”
“I’m sure it’ll be a blast.”
Chapter Thirteen
“How long does it take to draw a picture?” Gretchen kvetched as she and Mac drove to the Dandelion Diner, where they were to meet Hudson Walker. McNally was behind the wheel, squinting against sunlight that bounced off the wet pavement. “Facial reconstruction on a computer can’t be that hard. It’s just a matter of dimension, measurement of the bones, right? I mean, if that’s your area of expertise, why the hell does it take so long? Who are these techs anyway?”
Mac grunted, passing an RV that was edging into his lane. He halfway agreed with his partner but hated being subjected to her monologue. It was as if the woman couldn’t keep an idea inside her head. Once formed, it ran right past her lips and there was no stopping it. She had no governor. She just spewed.
And it was a pain in the ass.
“If we knew those bones were your little girlfriend, then we could take this investigation to the next level. And waiting for the damn DNA results is Chinese water torture. Unless you’re sleeping with one of the lab techs, nobody gives a shit about a rush order. Even then it’s fifty-fifty.”
“You know from experience?” Mac asked mildly as he stopped for a red light and the RV, driven by an older woman in a trucker’s cap, pulled alongside.
“If I did, I wouldn’t tell. Your complacency scares me, McNally. When did that happen?”
Twenty years ago, he thought. And it wasn’t complacency. It was cautiousness and diligence and awareness. But there was no way he was going to convince Gretchen she might not be employing her best investigative skills. She had all the answers already. No use in him wasting his breath.
As the light turned green and some idiot in a Ford Focus ran the light, crossing in front of him, he hit the brakes. Gretchen swore. “For the love of Christ, we oughtta pull that moron over!”
“The traffic guys’ll get him,” he said, gunning it to get in front of the RV, then whipping the cruiser into the gravel lot of the diner.
