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She nodded and left without looking back.
CHAPTER FOUR
“So I’m stuck in Nevada for a while, huh?”
“I’m sorry, David,” Faith replied. “Things are just up in the air now with Dr. West still loose. It’s better that you stay out of the way. We don’t think he knows about your family, just your association with me.”
“No, no, I get it,” he said, “You were right about the note, and you were right to worry about me. I just need to know what to tell my patients. I have a hundred emails from people wanting to know if they should find another vet. I’m thinking the ethical thing to do at this point is tell them that they should, at least temporarily.”
Faith could hear the tightness in his voice. “I’m sorry,” she said again.
“You said that already,” he said curtly.
She lowered her eyes and didn’t answer. She sat on a bench outside of the arrival gate talking to David, who was once more hiding in Nevada after Faith warned him that the Copycat Killer genuinely was looking for him and not only that was aware of a great many personal details of his, courtesy of his favorite patient, Faith.
Thathad been a fun conversation. It was the first time David had ever raised his voice to her. She had been certain he would break up with her then, so when he called her later and told her that he had landed safely in Las Vegas, she had nearly collapsed with relief.
Now, a week later, the tension between them still hadn’t eased. “I just want you to be safe,” she whispered softly.
“You’re the reason I’mnotsafe!” he shouted. “You told that asshole everything about me! Everything about us! I thought… Jesus, Faith, I thought I could trust you.”
His words left her physically ill. She slumped forward on the bench and stammered. “I… you can… I… it was supposed to be confidential.”
“Yeah, it was,” he agreed, “but that doesn’t matter, does it? This is the Faith Bold universe, and the rest of us are just playing a part in it.”
“David, that’s not fair!” she cried. A few other passengers glanced her way, and she lowered her voice and continued. “You know why I was in therapy. You encouraged me to seek it.”
“Yeah, so you could overcome your past trauma, not so you could tell a serial killer all about your new boyfriend.”
“Well, I didn’t know he was a serial killer, so maybe cut me a little slack!” She lowered her voice again and said, “Look, I really am sorry. If I could change things, I would, you know I would. But I can’t. It’s too late, and as much as this sucks for both of us, the safest thing right now is for you to stay where you are.”
“I already said I would,” he replied peevishly. He sighed, and when he spoke again, his anger had softened considerably. “And I do understand that this isn’t entirely your fault,” Faith’s stomach turned at the way he phrased that: isn’tentirelyyour fault, “but it’s a little too much to ask me to be pleasant right now when I’m watching my career implode because my girlfriend unwittingly put me in the crosshairs of a notorious serial killer. So I’ll stay here and out of harm’s way, but don’t ask me to be happy about it. It’s too much right now.”
“I don’t need you to be happy about it,” she said, wiping tears from her eyes. “I just need you to be safe.”
“Well, I’m as safe as I can be right now,” he said.
She looked up to see Michael approaching. “I have to go, David. I love you.”
He hesitated, only for a moment, but it might as well have been an eternity. “I love you too.”
She hung up just as Turk jumped to his feet and greeted Michael with an exuberant bark. She looked at his wagging tail as he leapt onto Michael’s shoulders and eagerly licked his face and wished that she could bounce back as easily as a dog could.
Michael laughed and tried unsuccessfully to avoid the onslaught of affection. "All right, all right," he said, slowly extricating himself. "It's good to see you too, boy." He looked at Faith, and his smile faded. "What happened to you?"
Faith’s lips thinned. Apparently, she hadn’t done a good enough job cleaning herself up to hide her injuries from her partner. “I’ll tell you later,” she said. “Did the Boss brief you on the case?”
“Yep. We’re heading to Iowa to find the Cornfed Killer.”
“Please don’t give the killer a handle,” she replied, getting to her feet and stifling a grimace as she did. “Let the media be the ones to do that.”
“I take it you’re not happy about being taken off the Copycat case again.”
“Excellent detective work, Special Agent,” she quipped.
“Would it be worthwhile to point out that you weren’t supposed to be on it in the first place?” he asked.
She glared at him, but he refused to back down. “Would it also be worth it to suggest that maybe you shouldn’t have run off and nearly gotten yourself killed trying to look for him?”
