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“I assume the suspect had fled by the time Holden arrived.” Jack may not have known details until now, but he’d been aware that the case had never been solved.
Robin nodded, still fighting back tears. He wanted to reach for her. He wanted to pull her into his lap and pet her hair and tell her how sorry he was.
Instead, he nodded grimly and continued to treat her as if she were any other victim’s loved one. He remained professional yet courteous. Warm and receptive yet detached enough to remain objective. It was what she needed from him. He sensed it in the waffle-scented air around them with such clarity that she may as well have spoken the words out loud.
“The case is cold now,” Robin said in a quiet voice. Her phone had buzzed on the table twice while they were talking, but while Jack had noticed, it wasn’t until this third one that she seemed to register the sound. She reached for the phone. “Sorry, I need to reply to their moms.”
“No worries.”
When she was finished, she set the phone down again. “All but one have said their daughters can stay longer. Hopefully the last one does too. I’d hate to see one girl have to leave while the others get to stay.”
Jack’s heart cracked as he studied her expression. She gazed in the direction of her daughter’s room, where they heard the faint sounds of giggling.
The woman was a marvel. He’d had plenty of tough conversations with grieving family members, and she’d told her story with such measured strength that he couldn’t help but be impressed. Not only that, but when duty called as a mom, she’d been able to set her grief aside and handle it, then still manage to consider the feelings of a handful of nine-year-old girls.
But as her phone buzzed again and she bent her head over it to reply to another text, Jack stared at the wall over her head and got lost in thought.
The case was cold, but there had to be more details than what Robin knew. He vowed to look over the case when he started work on Monday. Not in a way that would result in him being accused of stepping on toes or questioning his new department’s ability to investigate the crime, but he had to know more. He needed to see for himself if there was any stone that had gone unturned.
“That was the last mom,” Robin said with a triumphant smile. “I’m going to go tell them they all have permission to stay until ten. Which won’t be long enough for them, but it’s a full two hours later than they were originally supposed to stay. Cross your fingers for me that I won’t have to remind them of that with my signature mom voice.”
Jack forced a laugh, even though he was still consumed with mulling over Matthew’s case. He watched her leave the room, then steepled his fingers on the table in front of him and lowered his forehead to rest on the tips.
Would it be overstepping on his part to dig into this case? He wanted to care if it was. He really did. But the urge to provide Robin with some answers—the closure she clearly lacked—weighed heavily on his shoulders.
He wasn’t a detective, but as a military police officer, he’d solved smaller cases that didn’t warrant bringing in NCIS to investigate. His job as a beat cop in Philly had given him access to higher-profile cases as he worked side by side with the detectives, and he was confident in his ability to puzzle this out if he could unearth the necessary pieces.
Decision made, he stood and faced the hallway as Robin walked back out. “How did it go? Everyone happy about the extra time?”
“Very. No whining, no pleading for more.”
“Sounds like a win.”
She smiled, then crossed her arms over her chest. “I’ll take them any way I can get them.”
Jack’s chest tightened, and her simple statement cemented his resolve. “Thanks for the cocoa. And for telling me about Matthew.”
Robin looked over her shoulder—possibly to make sure Abby wasn’t nearby. When she faced him again, she shrugged and offered him a sheepish smile. “Not that there’s much to tell. But I hope telling you helps with…” She trailed off, gesturing between them with a few short swings of her wrist. “This.”
He knew exactly what she meant. Neither of them had ever spoken of the tension in the air when they were together. They hadn’t addressed the way their gazes seemed to hold from across the room, no matter how hard they both tried to stop doing that.
But “this” was something they both understood. An unspoken, deliberately avoided link had formed between them from the very beginning, and she’d hoped telling him more about Matthew would help him understand why the chasm between them would never be bridged.
And, as unfortunate as it was, that was exactly what happened.
* * *
By Wednesday,Jack had gotten the lay of the land at Snow Hill PD and felt comfortable enough to broach the subject of Matthew’s case with Holden, who seemed like a good cop and a good man. There was no doubt in Jack’s mind that it had hurt him to direct Jack to the locker Matthew had used.
Sure, the officer who’d taken the job immediately following Matthew’s death had occupied it until he moved away about two months ago, but he could tell that having it filled with yet another person’s belongings that were not Matthew’s had been hard for Holden.
Jack poured two cups of coffee from the ancient pot in the break room, then handed one to Holden before sitting down at the desk that faced his. “This coffee tastes as old as the pot that brewed it.”
Holden smirked. “Did you have fancy-pants espresso machines at your station in Philly?”
“No. But it was better than this sludge. No contest.”
“Listen, Mr. Big City, you’d better not come in here and try to make changes we don’t need. I’ve never heard of a police station that didn’t serve crap coffee, and SHPD isn’t about to break the mold.”
