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Again.
Ms. Prim and Proper looked down her nose, then jabbed the button for the main office. “Good morning.”
“Hey.” Roxie took another sip of her coffee.
Ms. Prim and Proper eyed Roxie one more time. Couldn’t help it. Needed to get an up-close look.
Take it in, you get one shot.
Roxie tensed her arm to fight the need to brush hair in front of her ear to cover the scar on the side of her face that stretched from her part down her hairline to her ear.
One shot.
It was what she’d given Mark. Now it was her turn.
The other woman smiled. “I’m Lena, by the way.”
Ah.She nodded. “Roxanne. Cold Cases.” So, this was Lena. It made sense now that she got a look at the woman—which might sound harsh, but she’d heard the story.
“I’m Clare’s assistant.”
Roxie nearly said, “Good for you.”
Peter Olson, a young guy she worked with in Cold Cases, had told her all about how Lena two-timed him and his twin brother, Simon, who worked in tech. She’d dated both, strung them along, and caused the twins to be at odds. Simon was still affected by it, while Peter had fallen for a young woman on an operation over the summer. He and Selena had survived a hijacked cruise ship, and now they were dating.
The guy even had a picture of her on his desk.
Roxanne’s summer had been less high risk, training with a search and rescue school that taught dog handling. She’d left that career path behind for reasons that were best unsaid. Sure, she’d gotten certified, but she hadn’t chosen a dog—though, she was on their “call” list in case they needed additional help for anything.
Tessa, the trainer she’d worked with, had texted to check in, but Roxanne hadn’t called back. After what happened with River and Tessa, and their dogs, she just couldn’t pretend everything was fine.
When the doors opened on Roxie’s floor, she offered a “Have a good day” over her shoulder and headed for Cold Cases.
Not many employees ventured onto this floor. Most worked out of the main office where Clare—the Vanguard CEO—could be a part of the day-to-day work. This floor took a more “boots on the ground” approach to their work.
Locker room. Break room. A small gym, separate from the training gym upstairs that had its own floor. They had a bullpen with banks of computers. Whiteboard walls they could brainstorm all over when they needed to figure out where to find a lead, and other walls covered with open cases and success stories. Like the west wall, which now had a picture of local PD Officer River Gaines under a sign that said SOLVED.
Peter was the one who had solved that, figuring out the identity of the cop who had been found as a child with no idea who he was and no parents. Since Roxie had met him and was friends with the woman River had fallen for—Tessa, the search and rescue trainer—the case had thankfully been put to rest.
She sipped her coffee and headed for her desk in an alcove because that was the spot she had chosen where she could see all the exits.
Roxie fired up her computer. No new emails in response to her inquiries about the case she was really here to solve—the missing woman she was trying to locate. Even though the lady was likely already dead, answers were still out there.
Then she would have what she needed to move on with her life.
“Meeting in five!” Bob Davis spoke so fast, calling out across the office, that he’d ducked back into his office before she ever saw his face. Just a blur at the corner of her vision.
She locked her computer so no one could access her profile without her password.
The screen darkened, and she stared at the outline of her own reflection. She couldn’t see the scars, the years of military shadow in her eyes, or the pain of so many mistakes. If her parents were still alive, they would be ashamed of her. Most of the time, she tried not to be ashamed of herself, though it was hard.
Then there was a certain SWAT sergeant who made her time in the marines predominantly fond memories of time spent with him. And yet now those were the worst of all her memories when coupled with what might have been.Never would be nowwas a kind of sweet torture.
Probably a pointless dream, anyway.
What was the use of worrying about something that never was when she had something more pressing to take care of?
Roxie pushed away all those distractions. She needed to be mission focused, like the single-minded days of deployment with her unit in Kandahar. Distractions got you killed—something she’d learned the hard way. Even praying God would save her hadn’t worked. She’d made her own way out, struggled and bled, and finally crawled to safety.
