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So Ethan Anderson was a doper and a dealer. Interesting as heck, yet this in no way acquits me of guilt. Until now, no one has said a bad word about the kid, but if I can talk to this Gibson person…if Gibson stayed in touch with Anderson…if Anderson was up to no good in Dallas…
My head spins. What I need is access to all the investigative tools the agency offers, but they’ve shut me out cold.
It would help if I still had a partner.
Back at the parking lot, I shut my door harder than necessary, gaining Annalise’s full attention, although in actuality, it has never left me. I’ve felt her eyes and her own whirling questions ever since we left Chase. I appreciate her help and all, but what I need is someone who knows what they’re doing. I can’t…I can’t do what needs to be done on my own.
But I sure as heck am going to try.
I make random turns leaving the parking lot, having no idea where I’m going, what I’m doing. I pull Annalise’s hand from her lap, curling her warm fingers into mine. I need something to hold on to. Someone.
I’m on what seems a main drag when I see familiar signage down a cross street. My life has certain rhythms. Like a pigeon in sight of home, I turn for that sign and pull into the parking lot of an IHOP, into the only available spot, in back by the dumpster.
The restaurant is an old version, an A-frame with a lofty peak but a small footprint. I’ve not been inside one of these in ages, which is saying something, considering my proclivity for sniffing out breakfast food no matter where my life and work take me.
My stomach is a knot, but I need something to do, somewhere to think.
How did my life spiral out of control? It’s as if everything I’ve ever done, my life’s work, the skills I’ve honed, have boomeranged and pinned me to the wall. Hence, Winburn’s account of the lifestyle of my victim is a gift. That night, I was worn to the bone. I acknowledge that my nerves were frayed, my reflexes in trigger mode, so much so that, these last weeks, I’ve let myself doubt what I saw and especially what I heard. When everything pointed to Anderson being a regular choir boy, I started to believe the narrative against me. Maybe I was guilty of overreacting.
But things are coming back. IknowI heard my name
“Can I borrow your sweatshirt again?” Annalise asks as I throw open my door.
I grunt an affirmative. She thinks she needs to ask?
By the time I meet her at her door, it’s open, she’s wearing my shirt, and she’s freeing that golden mane of hers from the collar. I want to bury my face in her hair and forget. I want to hold her tight and kiss those lips stupid. I’ve wanted that since the minute—every minute since—we met, and if I’ve ever said otherwise, I was lying. I also want things I can’t for the life of me articulate. I only know that I…want.Need.
Blocking her when she moves to get out, I fork my fingers into her hair and drop my mouth to hers. Hungry, empty, I take her in. Last night’s kiss feels like an eternity ago, wasn’t close to enough, and I’m tired of fighting it all for the sake of a guy who doesn’t care if I live or die. I’m tired period.
Her lips are like honey, and my fingers, the little pathfinders, nudge the sweatshirt’s hem aside, trailblazing their way to her waist—and suddenly, I’m dying over here. Dying of hunger and thirst and indefinable need.
I feel the barest pressure on my chest.
Or do I?
But in the next moment, I feel it again, too much to pretend was imagined. I pry myself away, my ardor quickly morphing into fear of her reaction. I forgot myself there for a minute—forgot her, her drama, her trauma.
I brace my hands on the doorframe. “Sorry about that.”
“It’s alright.” Her whispered words give me hope, but it isn’t until I dare meet her gaze that my heart is assured she won’t hold my zealous affection against me. What gets me, though, is the hint of pity.
I swallow hard, take her hand, and lead her inside. The place is mostly full, but we’re seated immediately, the hostess taking us to a booth along the far window. I order coffee, Annalise, orange juice. Her perusal of the menu looks half-hearted, and now that I look closely, the flush from our kiss has paled to eggshell.
“You alright?”
She clutches her hands on the top of the paper menu, and my attention is drawn to the matched bruises at that worse-before-better stage. “I’ve been thinking, after this, I probably should get that hotel room.”
After the morning’s burst of energy, she’s fading. I never should have brought her with me. To New Mexico or to Lubbock. I should have insisted she stay in Galveston. Nothing about the last few days has been restful.
For all my talk of sending her off on a jet plane, I don’t want her to go. I feel like a semi-truck backed up and offloaded all my issues on top of me before it sped away. I need someone to pry my flattened self off the pavement, and I’d like for that someone to be Annalise.
What I’m saying is, my life stinks. I’ve put on the happy face long enough, but time has hit warp speed and the walls are closing in fast.
Mexico is sounding better all the time.
No. I wouldn’t do that. Really. I’ll face this down like a man, and maybe, after I serve my time, I’ll have a life. Here’s hoping, right? Besides, being charged isn’t the same as being convicted, and I’m going to fight this bogus rap with all I’ve got—and that includes making the best of the forty-eight hours I have left. But I do need a plan.
Marginally calmer after a few intentional breaths, I watch Annalise set three brown bottles on the table, extract one pill from each, set them on her placemat, then stow the bottles away again.
